No Arabic abstract
Coherent charge transport along ballistic paths can be introduced into graphene by Andreev reflection, for which an electron reflects from a superconducting contact as a hole, while a Cooper pair is transmitted. We use a liquid-helium cooled scanning gate microscope (SGM) to image Andreev reflection in graphene in the magnetic focusing regime, where carriers move along cyclotron orbits between contacts. Images of flow are obtained by deflecting carrier paths and displaying the resulting change in conductance. When electrons enter the the superconductor, Andreev-reflected holes leave for the collecting contact. To test the results, we destroy Andreev reflection with a large current and by heating above the critical temperature. In both cases, the reflected carriers change from holes to electrons.
We study Andreev reflection in graphene nanoribbon/superconductor hybrid junctions. By using a tight-binding approach and the scattering formalism we show that finite-size effects lead to notable differences with respect to the bulk graphene case. At subgap voltages, conservation of pseudoparity, a quantum number characterizing the ribbon states, yields either a suppression of Andreev reflection when the ribbon has an even number of sites in the transverse direction or perfect Andreev reflection when the ribbon has an odd number of sites. In the former case the suppression of Andreev reflection induces an insulating behavior even when the junction is biased; electron conduction can however be restored by applying a gate voltage.
Andreev reflection in graphene is special since it can be of two types- retro or specular. Specular Andreev reflection (SAR) dominates when the position of the Fermi energy in graphene is comparable to or smaller than the superconducting gap. Bilayer graphene (BLG) is an ideal candidate to observe the crossover from retro to specular since the Fermi energy broadening near the Dirac point is much weaker compared to monolayer graphene. Recently, the observation of signatures of SAR in BLG have been reported experimentally by looking at the enhancement of conductance at finite bias near the Dirac point. However, the signatures were not very pronounced possibly due to the participation of normal quasi-particles at bias energies close to the superconducting gap. Here, we propose a scheme to observe the features of enhanced SAR even at zero bias at a normal metal (NM)-superconductor (SC) junction on BLG. Our scheme involves applying a Zeeman field to the NM side of the NM-SC junction on BLG (making the NM ferromagnetic), which energetically separates the Dirac points for up-spin and down-spin. We calculate the conductance as a function of chemical potential and bias within the superconducting gap and show that well-defined regions of specular- and retro-type Andreev reflection exist. We compare the results with and without superconductivity. We also investigate the possibility of the formation of a p-n junction at the interface between the NM and SC due to a work function mismatch.
We report the study of ballistic transport in normal metal/graphene/superconductor junctions in edge-contact geometry. While in the normal state, we have observed Fabry-P{e}rot resonances suggesting that charge carriers travel ballistically, the superconducting state shows that the Andreev reflection at the graphene/superconductor interface is affected by these interferences. Our experimental results in the superconducting state have been analyzed and explained with a modified Octavio-Tinkham-Blonder-Klapwijk model taking into account the magnetic pair-breaking effects and the two different interface transparencies, textit{i.e.},between the normal metal and graphene, and between graphene and the superconductor. We show that the transparency of the normal metal/graphene interface strongly varies with doping at large scale, while it undergoes weaker changes at the graphene/superconductor interface. When a cavity is formed by the charge transfer occurring in the vicinity of the contacts, we see that the transmission probabilities follow the normal state conductance highlighting the interplay between the Andreev processes and the electronic interferometer.
Using the non-equilibrium Green function method, we study the Andreev reflection in a Y-shaped graphene-superconductor device by tight-binding model. Considering both the zigzag and armchair terminals, we confirm that the zigzag terminals are the better choice for detecting the Andreev reflection without no external field. Due to scattering from the boundaries of the finite-size centre region, the difference between Andreev retroreflection and specular reflection is hard to be distinguished. Although adjusting the size of the device makes the difference visible, to distinguish them quantitatively is still impossible through the transport conductance. The problem is circumvented when applying a perpendicular magnetic field on the centre region, which makes the incident electrons and the reflected holes propagate along the edge or the interface. In this case, the retroreflected and specular reflected holes from the different bands have opposite effective masses, therefore the moving direction of one is opposite to the other. Which external terminal the reflected holes flow into depends entirely on the kind of the Andreev reflection. Therefore, the specular Andreev reflection can be clearly distinguished from the retroreflected one in the presence of strong magnetic field, even for the device with finite size.
The Andreev reflection of the normal state-superconductor junction both in monolayer and bilayer graphene with a single magnetic barrier is investigated by means of the Greens function formalism. Within the tight-binding model, we study the direction-dependent Andreev reflection of two-dimensional graphene-superconductor junctions in the specular and retro-reflection regimes. The presence of a magnetic barrier close to the superconducting hybrid junction introduces a rich phenomenology. Such a barrier is capable of tuning the preferred angles of incidence for the Andreev reflection. In particular, it can enhance the specular reflection probability for certain angles of incidence in bilayer-based hybrid structures. When transmission is permitted, the Andreev reflection manifests itself in isolated peaks and asymmetric resonances associated with offsets and Fano-type oscillations in the transmission, respectively. Moreover, Fabry-P{e}rot oscillations in the Andreev reflection due to the interior scattering inside the magnetic barrier may appear. The impacts of magnetic barriers on the monolayer and bilayer hybrid interfaces are furthermore studied by calculating the differential conductances within the Blonder-Tinkham-Klapwijk formula.