Interfering trajectories in a ballistic Andreev cavity

Abstract

The conventional description of transport through the interface between a normal conductor and a superconductor reduces the system to a one-dimensional problem treating Andreev reflection based on a zero-dimensional Sharvin-type point-contact model, and effectively neglects all considerations of device geometry. While this has been successful in systems where conductance in the normal material is in the diffusive transport regime, such an oversimplification of the problem fails in other transport regimes. In particular, when transport is ballistic as in a typical semiconductor-superconductor hybrid structure, geometrical effects are inherently important, and a proper description must consider a one-dimensional contact injecting into a two-dimensional ballistic cavity. We present a study of this regime and explore the bias-voltage dependence of Andreev transport in a cavity-type device comprised of a high-mobility HgTe quantum well side-contacted by one superconducting and one normal contact, each creating a one-dimensional interface. The enhanced conductance from Andreev transport features two finite-bias conductance peaks, observed at energies within the energy gap of the superconductor. Interestingly, these two peaks respond differently to the application of a perpendicular-to-plane magnetic field. Using a semiclassical model for the quantum transport within the cavity, we are able to attribute each peak to a different class of ballistic trajectories. One class is dominated by normal reflection, and its interference condition is independent of magnetic field, whereas the other one contains retroreflected Andreev processes at the superconductor interface. These create closed trajectories that are strongly suppressed by magnetic field due to Aharonov-Bohm and Doppler shift effects.

Source-reported materials — not catalogue approval

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