Highly Transparent Contacts to the 1D Hole Gas in Ultra-Scaled Ge/Si Core/Shell Nanowires.

Abstract

Semiconductor-superconductor hybrid systems have outstanding potential for emerging high performance nanoelectronics and quantum devices. However, critical to their successful application is the fabrication of high quality and reproducible semiconductor-superconductor interfaces. Here, we realize and measure axial Al-Ge-Al nanowire heterostructures with atomically precise interfaces, enwrapped by an ultra-thin epitaxial Si layer further denoted as Al-Ge/Si-Al nanowire heterostructures. The heterostructures were synthesized by a thermally induced exchange reaction of single-crystalline Ge/Si core/shell nanowires and lithographically defined Al contact pads. Applying this heterostructure formation scheme enables self-aligned quasi one-dimensional crystalline Al leads contacting ultra-scaled Ge/Si segments with contact transparencies greater than 96%. Integration into back-gated field-effect devices and continuous scaling beyond lithographic limitations allows us to exploit the full potential of the highly transparent contacts to the 1D hole gas at the Ge-Si interface. This leads to the observation of ballistic transport as well as quantum confinement effects up to temperatures of 150 K. Low temperature measurements reveal proximity-induced superconductivity in the Ge/Si core/shell nanowires. The realization of a Josephson field-effect transistor allows us to study the sub-gap structure caused by multiple Andreev reflections. Most importantly, the absence of a quantum dot regime indicates a hard superconducting gap originating from the highly transparent contacts to the 1D hole-gas, which is potentially interesting for the study of Majorana zero modes. Moreover, underlining the importance of the proposed thermally induced Al-Ge/Si-Al heterostructure formation technique, our system could contribute to the development of key components of quantum computing such as gatemon or transmon qubits.