RESUMO
The manifestation of spin-orbit interactions, long known to dramatically affect the band structure of heavy-element compounds, governs the physics in the surging class of topological matter. A particular example is found in the new family of topological crystalline insulators. In this systems transport occurs at the surfaces and spin-momentum locking yields crystal-symmetry protected spin-polarized transport. We investigated the current-phase relation of SnTe thin films connected to superconducting electrodes to form SQUID devices. Our results demonstrate that an assisting in-plane magnetic field component can induce 0-π-transitions. We attribute these findings to giant g-factors and large spin-orbit coupling of SnTe topological crystalline insulator, which provides a new platform for investigation of the interplay between spin-orbit physics and topological transport.
RESUMO
Topological crystalline insulators represent a new state of matter, in which the electronic transport is governed by mirror-symmetry protected Dirac surface states. Due to the helical spin-polarization of these surface states, the proximity of topological crystalline matter to a nearby superconductor is predicted to induce unconventional superconductivity and, thus, to host Majorana physics. We report on the preparation and characterization of Nb-based superconducting quantum interference devices patterned on top of topological crystalline insulator SnTe thin films. The SnTe films show weak anti-localization, and the weak links of the superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUID) exhibit fully gapped proximity-induced superconductivity. Both properties give a coinciding coherence length of 120 nm. The SQUID oscillations induced by a magnetic field show 2π periodicity, possibly dominated by the bulk conductivity.
