Intrinsic supercurrent non-reciprocity coupled to the crystal structure of a van der Waals Josephson barrier

Non-reciprocal electronic transport in a spatially homogeneous system arises from the simultaneous breaking of inversion and time-reversal symmetries. Superconducting and Josephson diodes, a key ingredient for future non-dissipative quantum devices, have recently been realized. Only a few examples o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature communications 2024-02, Vol.15 (1), p.1120-1120, Article 1120
Main Authors: Kim, Jae-Keun, Jeon, Kun-Rok, Sivakumar, Pranava K., Jeon, Jaechun, Koerner, Chris, Woltersdorf, Georg, Parkin, Stuart S. P.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
147/135
639/766/119/1003
639/766/119/544
Broken symmetry
Chirality
Crystal structure
Diodes
Electron transport
Humanities and Social Sciences
Josephson junctions
multidisciplinary
Reciprocity
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Superconductivity
Thickness
Two dimensional materials
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Summary:Non-reciprocal electronic transport in a spatially homogeneous system arises from the simultaneous breaking of inversion and time-reversal symmetries. Superconducting and Josephson diodes, a key ingredient for future non-dissipative quantum devices, have recently been realized. Only a few examples of a vertical superconducting diode effect have been reported and its mechanism, especially whether intrinsic or extrinsic, remains elusive. Here we demonstrate a substantial supercurrent non-reciprocity in a van der Waals vertical Josephson junction formed with a T d -WTe 2 barrier and NbSe 2 electrodes that clearly reflects the intrinsic crystal structure of T d -WTe 2 . The Josephson diode efficiency increases with the T d -WTe 2 thickness up to critical thickness, and all junctions, irrespective of the barrier thickness, reveal magneto-chiral characteristics with respect to a mirror plane of T d -WTe 2 . Our results, together with the twist-angle-tuned magneto-chirality of a T d -WTe 2 double-barrier junction, show that two-dimensional materials promise vertical Josephson diodes with high efficiency and tunability. J.-K. Kim et al. study vertical Josephson junctions where the weak link is T d -WTe 2 and the superconductor is NbSe 2 . The use of an inversion-symmetry-breaking T d -WTe 2 weak link allows the authors to demonstrate the intrinsic origin of the observed Josephson non-reciprocity in these devices.
ISSN:2041-1723
2041-1723
DOI:10.1038/s41467-024-45298-9