Department of Physics and Institute for Optical Sciences, University of Toronto, 60 St George Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 1A7.
Nat Commun. 2012;3:1056. doi: 10.1038/ncomms2042.
Interest in the superconducting proximity effect has been reinvigorated recently by novel optoelectronic applications as well as by the possible emergence of the elusive Majorana fermion at the interface between topological insulators and superconductors. Here we produce high-temperature superconductivity in Bi(2)Se(3) and Bi(2)Te(3) via proximity to Bi(2)Sr(2)CaCu(2)O(8+δ), to access higher temperature and energy scales for this phenomenon. This was achieved by a new mechanical bonding technique that we developed, enabling the fabrication of high-quality junctions between materials, unobtainable by conventional approaches. We observe proximity-induced superconductivity in Bi(2)Se(3) and Bi(2)Te(3) persisting up to at least 80 K-a temperature an order of magnitude higher than any previous observations. Moreover, the induced superconducting gap in our devices reaches values of 10 mV, significantly enhancing the relevant energy scales. Our results open new directions for fundamental studies in condensed matter physics and enable a wide range of applications in spintronics and quantum computing.
最近，由于新型光电应用以及在拓扑绝缘体和超导体界面上可能出现难以捉摸的马约拉纳费米子，超导近邻效应引起了人们的浓厚兴趣。在这里，我们通过与 Bi(2)Sr(2)CaCu(2)O(8+δ)的近邻作用，在 Bi(2)Se(3)和 Bi(2)Te(3)中产生高温超导，以达到该现象的更高温度和能量尺度。这是通过我们开发的一种新的机械结合技术实现的，该技术使我们能够在材料之间制造出高质量的结，而这是传统方法无法实现的。我们观察到 Bi(2)Se(3)和 Bi(2)Te(3)中的近邻诱导超导性一直持续到至少 80 K，这比以前的任何观察结果都高出一个数量级。此外，我们器件中的诱导超导能隙达到 10 mV，显著提高了相关的能量尺度。我们的结果为凝聚态物理的基础研究开辟了新的方向，并为自旋电子学和量子计算中的广泛应用提供了可能。
