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In-plane selective area growth (SAG) of III–V nanowires (NWs) has emerged as a scalable materials platform for quantum electronics and photonics applications. Most applications impose strict requirements on the material characteristics which makes optimization of the crystal quality vital. Alignment of in-plane SAG NWs with respect to the substrate symmetry is of importance due to the large substrate-NW interface as well as to obtain nanostructures with well-defined facets. Understanding the role of mis-orientation is thus important for designing devices and interpretation of electrical performance of devices. Here we study the effect of mis-orientation on morphology of selectively grown NWs oriented along the [1 1̅ 1̅] direction on GaAs(2 1 1)B. Atomic force microscopy is performed to extract facet roughness as a measure of structural quality. Further, we evaluate the dependence of material incorporation in NWs on the orientation and present the facet evolution in between two high symmetry in-plane orientations. By investigating the length dependence of NW morphology, we find that the morphology of ≈1 μ m long nominally aligned NWs remains unaffected by the unintentional misalignment associated with the processing and alignment of the sample under study. Finally, we show that using Sb as a surfactant during growth improves root-mean-square facet roughness for large misalignment but does not lower it for nominally aligned NWs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use the effective g factor of Andreev subgap states in an axial magnetic field to investigate how the superconducting density of states is distributed between the semiconductor core and the superconducting shell in hybrid nanowires. We find a steplike reduction of the Andreev g factor and an improved hard gap with reduced carrier density in the nanowire, controlled by gate voltage. These observations are relevant for Majorana devices, which require tunable carrier density and a g factor exceeding that of the parent superconductor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wepresent a quantitative characterization of an electrically tunable Josephson junction defined in an InAs nanowire proximitized by an epitaxially-grown superconducting Al shell. The gate-dependence of the number of conduction channels and of the set of transmission coefficients are extracted from the highly nonlinear current-voltage characteristics. Although the transmissions evolve nonmonotonically, the number of independent channels can be tuned, and configurations with a single quasi-ballistic channel achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key task in the emerging field of bioelectronics is the transduction between ionic/protonic and electronic signals at high fidelity. This is a considerable challenge since the two carrier types exhibit intrinsically different physics and are best supported by very different materials typeselectronic signals in inorganic semiconductors and ionic/protonic signals in organic or bio-organic polymers, gels, or electrolytes. Here we demonstrate a new class of organic-inorganic transducing interface featuring semiconducting nanowires electrostatically gated using a solid proton-transporting hygroscopic polymer. This model platform allows us to study the basic transducing mechanisms as well as deliver high fidelity signal conversion by tapping into and drawing together the best candidates from traditionally disparate realms of electronic materials research. By combining complementary n- and p-type transducers we demonstrate functional logic with significant potential for scaling toward high-density integrated bioelectronic circuitry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hybrid nanowires combining semiconductor and superconductor materials appear well suited for the creation, detection, and control of Majorana bound states (MBSs). We demonstrate the emergence of MBSs from coalescing Andreev bound states (ABSs) in a hybrid InAs nanowire with epitaxial Al, using a quantum dot at the end of the nanowire as a spectrometer. Electrostatic gating tuned the nanowire density to a regime of one or a few ABSs. In an applied axial magnetic field, a topological phase emerges in which ABSs move to zero energy and remain there, forming MBSs. We observed hybridization of the MBS with the end-dot bound state, which is in agreement with a numerical model. The ABS/MBS spectra provide parameters that are useful for understanding topological superconductivity in this system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Semiconductingnanowires (NWs) are a versatile, highly tunable material platformat the heart of many new developments in nanoscale and quantum physics.Here, we demonstrate charge pumping, that is, the controlled transportof individual electrons through an InAs NW quantum dot (QD) deviceat frequencies up to 1.3 GHz. The QD is induced electrostaticallyin the NW by a series of local bottom gates in a state of the artdevice geometry. A periodic modulation of a single gate is enoughto obtain a dc current proportional to the frequency of the modulation.The dc bias, the modulation amplitude and the gate voltages on thelocal gates can be used to control the number of charges conveyedper cycle. Charge pumping in InAs NWs is relevant not only in metrologyas a current standard, but also opens up the opportunity to investigatea variety of exotic states of matter, for example, Majorana modes,by single electron spectroscopy and correlation experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many present and future applications of superconductivity would benefit from electrostatic control of carrier density and tunnelling rates, the hallmark of semiconductor devices. One particularly exciting application is the realization of topological superconductivity as a basis for quantum information processing. Proposals in this direction based on the proximity effect in semiconductor nanowires are appealing because the key ingredients are currently in hand. However, previous instances of proximitized semiconductors show significant tunnelling conductance below the superconducting gap, suggesting a continuum of subgap states-a situation that nullifies topological protection. Here, we report a hard superconducting gap induced by the proximity effect in a semiconductor, using epitaxial InAs-Al semiconductor-superconductor nanowires. The hard gap, together with favourable material properties and gate-tunability, makes this new hybrid system attractive for a number of applications, as well as fundamental studies of mesoscopic superconductivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a device with a superconductor coupled to two parallel quantum dots (QDs) the electrical tunability of the QD levels can be used to exploit nonclassical current correlations due to the splitting of Cooper pairs. We experimentally investigate the effect of a finite potential difference across one quantum dot on the conductance through the other completely grounded QD in a Cooper pair splitter fabricated on an InAs nanowire. We demonstrate that the nonlocal electrical transport through the device can be tuned by electrical means and that the energy dependence of the effective density of states in the QDs is relevant for the rates of Cooper pair splitting (CPS) and elastic cotunneling. Such experimental tools are necessary to understand and develop CPS-based sources of entangled electrons in solid-state devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report a systematic experimental study of mesoscopic conductance fluctuations in superconductor/normal/superconductor (SNS) devices Nb/InAs-nanowire/Nb. These fluctuations far exceed their value in the normal state and strongly depend on temperature even in the low-temperature regime. This dependence is attributed to high sensitivity of perfectly conducting channels to dephasing and the SNS fluctuations thus provide a sensitive probe of dephasing in a regime where normal transport fails to detect it. Further, the conductance fluctuations are strongly nonlinear in bias voltage and reveal subgap structure. The experimental findings are qualitatively explained in terms of multiple Andreev reflections in chaotic quantum dots with imperfect contacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present the electric properties of p-InAs nanowire field-effect transistors showing ambipolar conduction. Be doped nanowires are grown by the vapor-solid-solid mechanism using molecular beam epitaxy with in situ deposited Au catalyst particles. P-type conduction in InAs nanowires is challenging because of the Fermi-level pinning above the conduction band edge at the nanowire surface that leads to creation of an electron inversion layer. We demonstrate that this task is possible without a modified surface and report a strong temperature dependence (10–105) of the on-off ratio caused by the surface inversion layer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The shape and facets of GaAs nanowires grown by molecular beam epitaxy have been identified by the use of the diffuse scattering around the Bragg reflection from the parts of the nanowires having different crystal structures. The zinc blende parts of the nanowires are shown to have {111} facets in the form of truncated octahedrons, whereas the facets of the wurtzite structure are [formula]. A minor part of the nanowires have a new structure consisting of a superlattice of regular and twinned structures only six bilayer thick. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We demonstrate the Josephson effect in a serial double quantum dot defined in a nanowire with epitaxial superconducting leads. The supercurrent stability diagram adopts a honeycomb pattern. We observe sharp discontinuities in the magnitude of the critical current, Ic, as a function of dot occupation, related to doublet to singlet ground state transitions. Detuning of the energy levels offers a tuning knob for Ic, which attains a maximum at zero detuning. The consistency between experiment and theory indicates that our device is a faithful realization of the two-impurity Anderson model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present an experimental study of flux- and gate-tunable nanowire transmons with state-of-the-art relaxation time allowing quantitative extraction of flux and charge noise coupling to the Josephson energy. We evidence coherence sweet spots for charge, tuned by voltage on a proximal side gate, where first order sensitivity to switching two-level systems and background 1/f noise is minimized. Next, we investigate the evolution of a nanowire transmon in a parallel magnetic field up to 70 mT, the upper bound set by the closing of the induced gap. Several features observed in the field dependence of qubit energy relaxation and dephasing times are not fully understood. Using nanowires with a thinner, partially covering Al shell will enable operation of these circuits up to 0.5 T, a regime relevant for topological quantum computation and other applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We compare the spin-orbit interaction (SOI) in InAs nanowires grown in the conventional (0001) crystal direction and the perpendicular (01¯10) direction. It is theoretically shown that, for individual transverse modes, the intrinsic contribution due to the bulk inversion asymmetry of the crystal vanishes for wires in the (0001) direction but remains finite for (01¯10). Experimental spin-orbit scattering lengths extracted from low-temperature magnetoresistance measurements of individual nanowires yields, however, comparable values in the two cases, suggesting that the intrinsic intramode spin-orbit term is not the dominant source of the SOI. We discuss the implications for the manipulation of SOI in nanowire devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]