INVITED TALK -> Semiconductor-Superconductor Optoelectronic Devices

We demonstrated experimentally superconducting proximity in semiconductor light-emitting structures proposed by us for enhanced two-photon gain, electrically-driven entangled-photon generation and Bell state analyzers. We... [ view full abstract ]

We demonstrated experimentally superconducting proximity in semiconductor light-emitting structures proposed by us for enhanced two-photon gain, electrically-driven entangled-photon generation and Bell state analyzers. We produced high-temperature superconductivity in topological insulators Bi2Se3 and Bi2Te3 and high-temperature superconductor-semiconductor tunnel diodes.

We proposed an efficient approach for generation of entangled photons, based on Cooper-pair luminescence in semiconductors, which does not require isolated emitters. Semiconductor quantum wells, remove the light-heavy-hole degeneracy, allowing efficient photon entanglement generation in simple electrically-driven structures, taking advantage of the superconducting macroscopic coherence [1]. We analyzed a new effect of enhanced light amplification in electrically-driven semiconductor-superconductor structures, including Cooper-pair based two-photon gain [2]. We also proposed a compact and highly-efficient scheme for a complete Bell-state analysis using two-photon absorption in a superconducting proximity region of a semiconductor avalanche photodiode. This Cooper-pair based two-photon absorption results in a strong detection preference of a specified entangled state.

We demonstrated experimentally hybrid high-Tc-superconductor-semiconductor tunnel junctions [3]. The devices were fabricated by the newly-developed mechanical bonding technique, resulting in high-Tc-semiconductor planar junctions acting as superconducting tunnel diodes. Tunneling-spectra characterization of the hybrid junctions of BSCCO combined with bulk GaAs, or a GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well, exhibits excess voltage and nonlinearity.

We produced high-temperature superconductivity in topological insulators Bi2Se3 and Bi2Te3 via proximity to BSCCO [4], persisting up to at least 80K – a temperature an order of magnitude higher than any previous observations. Moreover, the induced superconducting gap in these devices reaches values of 10mV, significantly enhancing the relevant energy scales. Andreev reflection is observed as an excess current and an increase in differential conductance.

These results open new directions for fundamental studies in condensed matter physics and light-matter interaction and enable a wide range of applications in optoelectronics and quantum information processing.

[1] A. Hayat, et al, Phys. Rev. B 89, 094508 (2014).
[2] R. Marjieh, E. Sabag and A. Hayat, New J. Phys. 18, 023019 (2016); G. Donati, Nature Photon. 10, 207 (2016).
[3] A. Hayat et al. Phys. Rev. X 2, 041019 (2012).
[4] P. Zareapour, A. Hayat, et al. Nature Commun. 3, 1056 (2012).