A groundbreaking sample preparation technique has enabled researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Tokyo to perform the most controlled and sensitive study to date of a topological insulator (TI) closely coupled to a superconductor (SC). The scientists observed the superconducting proximity effect -- induced superconductivity in the TI due to its proximity to the SC -- and measured its relationship to temperature and the thickness of the TI.
TIs with induced superconductivity are of paramount interest to physicists because they have the potential to host exotic physical phenomena, including the elusive Majorana fermion -- an elementary particle theorized to be its own antiparticle -- and to exhibit supersymmetry -- a phenomenon reaching beyond the standard model that would shed light on many outstanding problems in physics. Superconducting TIs also hold tremendous promise for technological applications, including topological quantum computation and spintronics.
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