Superconductivity in a chiral nanotube

F. Qin, W. Shi, T. Ideue (), M. Yoshida, A. Zak, R. Tenne, T. Kikitsu, D. Inoue, D. Hashizume and Y. Iwasa
Additional contact information
F. Qin: The University of Tokyo
W. Shi: The University of Tokyo
T. Ideue: The University of Tokyo
M. Yoshida: The University of Tokyo
A. Zak: Faculty of Sciences, Holon Institute of Technology
R. Tenne: Weizmann Institute of Science
T. Kikitsu: RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science (CEMS)
D. Inoue: RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science (CEMS)
D. Hashizume: RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science (CEMS)
Y. Iwasa: The University of Tokyo

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-6

Abstract: Abstract Chirality of materials are known to affect optical, magnetic and electric properties, causing a variety of nontrivial phenomena such as circular dichiroism for chiral molecules, magnetic Skyrmions in chiral magnets and nonreciprocal carrier transport in chiral conductors. On the other hand, effect of chirality on superconducting transport has not been known. Here we report the nonreciprocity of superconductivity—unambiguous evidence of superconductivity reflecting chiral structure in which the forward and backward supercurrent flows are not equivalent because of inversion symmetry breaking. Such superconductivity is realized via ionic gating in individual chiral nanotubes of tungsten disulfide. The nonreciprocal signal is significantly enhanced in the superconducting state, being associated with unprecedented quantum Little-Parks oscillations originating from the interference of supercurrent along the circumference of the nanotube. The present results indicate that the nonreciprocity is a viable approach toward the superconductors with chiral or noncentrosymmetric structures.

Date: 2017
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms14465

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