Interface-Induced Superconductivity in Magnetic Topological Insulator-Iron Chalcogenide Heterostructures

When two different electronic materials are brought together, the resultant interface often shows unexpected quantum phenomena, including interfacial superconductivity and Fu-Kane topological superconductivity (TSC). Here, we use molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) to synthesize heterostructures formed by stacking together two magnetic materials, a ferromagnetic topological insulator (TI) and an antiferromagnetic iron chalcogenide (FeTe). We discover emergent interface-induced superconductivity in these heterostructures and demonstrate the trifecta occurrence of superconductivity, ferromagnetism, and topological band structure in the magnetic TI layer, the three essential ingredients of chiral TSC. The unusual coexistence of ferromagnetism and superconductivity can be attributed to the high upper critical magnetic field that exceeds the Pauli paramagnetic limit for conventional superconductors at low temperatures. The magnetic TI/FeTe heterostructures with robust superconductivity and atomically sharp interfaces provide an ideal wafer-scale platform for the exploration of chiral TSC and Majorana physics, constituting an important step toward scalable topological quantum computation.
Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures. Accepted by Science. Comments are welcome