Majarona fermions (MFs) were predicted more than seven decades ago but are yet to be identified [1]. Recently, much attention has been paid to search for MFs in condensed matter systems [2-10]. One of the seaching schemes is to create MF at the interface between an s-wave superconductor (SC) and a 3D topological insulator (TI) [11-13]. Experimentally, progresses have been achieved in the observations of a proximity-effect-induced supercurrent [14-16], a perfect Andreev reflection [17] and a conductance peak at the Fermi level [18]. However, further characterizations are still needed to clarify the nature of the SC-TI interface. In this Letter, we report on a strong proximity effect in Pb-Bi2Te3 hybrid structures, based on which Josephson junctions and superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) can be constructed. Josephson devices of this type would provide a test-bed for exploring novel phenomena such as MFs in the future.
@article{arxiv.1112.1683,
title = {Strong Superconducting Proximity Effect in Pb-Bi2Te3 Hybrid Structures},
author = {Fanming Qu and Fan Yang and Jie Shen and Yue Ding and Jun Chen and Zhongqing Ji and Guangtong Liu and Jie Fan and Xiunian Jing and Changli Yang and Li Lu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1112.1683},
year = {2012}
}