No Arabic abstract
We experimentally investigate spin-polarized electron transport between a permalloy ferromagnet and the edge of a two-dimensional electron system with band inversion, realized in a narrow, 8~nm wide HgTe quantum well. In zero magnetic field, we observe strong asymmetry of the edge potential distribution with respect to the ferromagnetic ground lead. This result indicates, that the helical edge channel, specific for the structures with band inversion even at the conductive bulk, is strongly coupled to the ferromagnetic side contact, possibly due to the effects of proximity magnetization. It allows selective and spin-sensitive contacting of helical edge states.
We experimentally investigate electron transport through the interface between a superconductor and the edge of a two-dimensional electron system with band inversion. The interface is realized as a tunnel NbN side contact to a narrow 8~nm HgTe quantum well. It demonstrates a typical Andreev behavior with finite conductance within the superconducting gap. Surprisingly, the conductance is modulated by a number of equally-spaced oscillations. The oscillations are present only within the superconducting gap and at lowest, below 1~K, temperatures. The oscillations disappear completely in magnetic fields, normal to the two-dimensional electron system plane. In contrast, the oscillations period is only weakly affected by the highest, up to 14~T, in-plane oriented magnetic fields. We interpret this behavior as the interference oscillations in a helical one-dimensional edge channel due to a proximity with a superconductor.
We experimentally investigate spin-polarized electron transport between two ferromagnetic contacts, placed at the edge of a two-dimensional electron system with band inversion. The system is realized in a narrow (8~nm) HgTe quantum well, the ferromagnetic side contacts are formed from a pre-magnetized permalloy film. In zero magnetic field, we find a significant edge current contribution to the transport between two ferromagnetic contacts. We experimentally demonstrate that this transport is sensitive to the mutual orientation of the magnetization directions of two 200~$mu$m-spaced ferromagnetic leads. This is a direct experimental evidence on the spin-coherent edge transport over the macroscopic distances. Thus, the spin is extremely robust at the edge of a two-dimensional electron system with band inversion, confirming the helical spin-resolved nature of edge currents.
We propose a minimal effective two-dimensional Hamiltonian for HgTe/CdHgTe quantum wells (QWs) describing the side maxima of the first valence subband. By using the Hamiltonian, we explore the picture of helical edge states in tensile and compressively strained HgTe QWs. We show that both dispersion and probability density of the edge states can differ significantly from those predicted by the Bernevig-Hughes-Zhang (BHZ) model. Our results pave the way towards further theoretical investigations of HgTe-based quantum spin Hall insulators with direct and indirect band gaps beyond the BHZ model.
Circuit quantum electrodynamics allows one to probe, manipulate and couple superconducting quantum bits using cavity photons at an exquisite level. One of its cornerstones is the possibility to achieve the strong coupling which allows one to hybridize coherently light and matter. Its transposition to quantum dot circuits could offer the opportunity to use new degrees of freedom such as individual charge or spin. However, the strong coupling of quantum dot circuits to cavity photons remains to be observed. Here, we demonstrate a hybrid superconductor-quantum dot circuit which realizes the strong coupling of an individual electronic excitation to microwave photons. We observe a vacuum Rabi splitting 2g~10 MHz which exceeds by a factor of 3 the linewidth of the hybridized light-matter states. Our findings open the path to ultra-long distance entanglement of quantum dot based qubits. They could be adapted to many other circuit designs, shedding new light on the roadmap for scalability of quantum dot setups.
Majorana bound states are zero-energy excitations of topological superconductors which obey non-Abelian exchange statistics and are basic building blocks for topological quantum computation. In order to observe and exploit their extraordinary properties, we need to be able to properly manipulate them, for instance, by braiding a couple of them in real space. We propose a setup based on the helical edges of two-dimensional topological insulators (2DTI) which allows for a high degree of tunability by only controlling a handful of superconducting phases. In particular, our setup allows to move the Majoranas along a single edge as well as to move them across two different edges coupled by a quantum point contact. Robustness against non-optimal control of the phases is also discussed. This proposal constitutes an essential step forward towards realizing 2DTI-based architectures capable of performing braiding of Majoranas in a feasible way.