Superconducting proximity effect in InAsSb surface quantum wells with in-situ Al contact

Abstract

We demonstrate robust superconducting proximity effect in InAs$_{0.5}$Sb$_{0.5}$ quantum wells grown with epitaxial Al contact, which has important implications for mesoscopic and topological superconductivity. Unlike more commonly studied InAs and InSb semiconductors, bulk InAs$_{0.5}$Sb$_{0.5}$ supports stronger spin-orbit coupling and larger $g$-factor. However, these potentially desirable properties have not been previously measured in epitaxial heterostructures with superconductors, which could serve as a platform for fault-tolerant topological quantum computing. Through structural and transport characterization we observe high-quality interfaces and strong spin-orbit coupling. We fabricate Josephson junctions based on InAs$_{0.5}$Sb$_{0.5}$ quantum wells and observe strong proximity effect. These junctions exhibit product of normal resistance and critical current, $I_{c}R_{N} = \SI{270}{\micro V}$, and excess current, $I_{ex}R_{N} = \SI{200}{\micro V}$ at contact separations of 500~nm. Both of these quantities demonstrate a robust and long-range proximity effect with highly-transparent contacts.