We report the demonstration of hybrid high-Tc-superconductor-semiconductor tunnel junctions, enabling new interdisciplinary directions in condensed matter research. The devices were fabricated by our newly-developed mechanical bonding technique, resulting in high-Tc-semiconductor planar junctions acting as superconducting tunnel diodes. Tunneling-spectra characterization of the hybrid junctions of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+{\delta} combined with bulk GaAs, or a GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well, exhibits excess voltage and nonlinearity - in good agreement with theoretical predictions for a d-wave superconductor-normal material junction, and similar to spectra obtained in scanning tunneling microscopy. Additional junctions are demonstrated using Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+{\delta} combined with graphite or Bi2Te3. Our results pave the way for new methods in unconventional superconductivity studies, novel materials and quantum technology applications.
@article{arxiv.1301.1979,
title = {Hybrid high-temperature superconductor-semiconductor tunnel diode},
author = {Alex Hayat and Parisa Zareapour and Shu Yang F. Zhao and Achint Jain and Igor G. Savelyev and Marina Blumin and Zhijun Xu and Alina Yang and G. D. Gu and Harry E. Ruda and Shuang Jia and R. J. Cava and Aephraim M. Steinberg and Kenneth S. Burch},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1301.1979},
year = {2013}
}