Superconducting parity effect across the Anderson limit

Sergio Vlaic, Stéphane Pons, Tianzhen Zhang, Alexandre Assouline, Alexandre Zimmers, Christophe David, Guillemin Rodary, Jean-Christophe Girard, Dimitri Roditchev and Hervé Aubin ()
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Sergio Vlaic: LPEM, ESPCI Paris, PSL Research University, CNRS, Sorbonne Universités
Stéphane Pons: LPEM, ESPCI Paris, PSL Research University, CNRS, Sorbonne Universités
Tianzhen Zhang: LPEM, ESPCI Paris, PSL Research University, CNRS, Sorbonne Universités
Alexandre Assouline: LPEM, ESPCI Paris, PSL Research University, CNRS, Sorbonne Universités
Alexandre Zimmers: LPEM, ESPCI Paris, PSL Research University, CNRS, Sorbonne Universités
Christophe David: Centre de Nanosciences et de Nanotechnologies, CNRS, Univ. Paris-Sud, Universités Paris-Saclay
Guillemin Rodary: Centre de Nanosciences et de Nanotechnologies, CNRS, Univ. Paris-Sud, Universités Paris-Saclay
Jean-Christophe Girard: Centre de Nanosciences et de Nanotechnologies, CNRS, Univ. Paris-Sud, Universités Paris-Saclay
Dimitri Roditchev: LPEM, ESPCI Paris, PSL Research University, CNRS, Sorbonne Universités
Hervé Aubin: LPEM, ESPCI Paris, PSL Research University, CNRS, Sorbonne Universités

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

Abstract: Abstract How small can superconductors be? For isolated nanoparticles subject to quantum size effects, P.W. Anderson in 1959 conjectured that superconductivity could only exist when the electronic level spacing δ is smaller than the superconducting gap energy Δ. Here we report a scanning tunnelling spectroscopy study of superconducting lead (Pb) nanocrystals grown on the (110) surface of InAs. We find that for nanocrystals of lateral size smaller than the Fermi wavelength of the 2D electron gas at the surface of InAs, the electronic transmission of the interface is weak; this leads to Coulomb blockade and enables the extraction of electron addition energy of the nanocrystals. For large nanocrystals, the addition energy displays superconducting parity effect, a direct consequence of Cooper pairing. Studying this parity effect as a function of nanocrystal volume, we find the suppression of Cooper pairing when the mean electronic level spacing overcomes the superconducting gap energy, thus demonstrating unambiguously the validity of the Anderson criterion.

Date: 2017
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms14549

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