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Device physics

Super-semiconducting nanowires

Nature Nanotechnology volume 1, pages 167–168 (2006) Cite this article

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Semiconducting heterostructures have long been used to control the transport of electrons in circuits. Now, researchers have shown that a semiconducting nanowire can control the current in a superconducting device.

The unrivalled versatility of semiconducting nanostructures makes them the heart of present-day microelectronics. Integrating these various semiconductor structures with superconducting metals opens exciting possibilities in many fields of fundamental solid-state devices, but faces the practical challenge of how to combine two types of materials that often have very different electronic and structural properties. Now, on page 208 of this issue, Jie Xiang and colleagues at Harvard University show how to efficiently overcome this obstacle1.

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Figure 1: Multiple Andreev reflections can be observed in a semiconductor nanowire Josephson junction.
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References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, 78457, Germany

    Wolfgang Belzig

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  1. Wolfgang Belzig
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Belzig, W. Super-semiconducting nanowires. Nature Nanotech 1, 167–168 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2006.161

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