Supercurrent in the quantum Hall regime

• Published in: Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 352; no. 6288; pp. 966 - 969
• Main Authors: Amet, F., Ke, C. T., Borzenets, I. V., Wang, J., Watanabe, K., Taniguchi, T., Deacon, R. S., Yamamoto, M., Bomze, Y., Tarucha, S., Finkelstein, G.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Association for the Advancement of Science 20.05.2016; The American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Subjects: Electric currents; Electrodes; Electron transfer; Magnetic fields; Superconductors
• ISSN: 0036-8075; 1095-9203; 1095-9203
• DOI: 10.1126/science.aad6203

A promising route for creating topological states and excitations is to combine superconductivity and the quantum Hall (QH) effect. Despite this potential, signatures of superconductivity in the QH regime remain scarce, and a superconducting current through a QH weak link has been challenging to observe. We demonstrate the existence of a distinct supercurrent mechanism in encapsulated graphene samples contacted by superconducting electrodes, in magnetic fields as high as 2 tesla. The observation of a supercurrent in the QH regime marks an important step in the quest for exotic topological excitations, such as Majorana fermions and parafermions, which may find applications in fault-tolerant quantum computing.