Dongchan Jeong

Inelastic scattering in a monolayer graphene sheet: A weak-localization study

Charge carriers in a graphene sheet, a single layer of graphite, exhibit distinct characteristics from those in other two-dimensional electronic systems because of their chiral nature. In this paper, we focus on the observation of weak localization in a graphene sheet exfoliated from a piece of natural graphite and nanopatterned into a Hall-bar geometry. Much stronger chiral-symmetry-breaking elastic intervalley scattering in our graphene sheet restores the conventional weak localization. The resulting carrier density and temperature dependence of the phase coherence length reveal that the electron-electron interaction including a direct Coulomb interaction is the main inelastic-scattering factor while electron-hole puddles enhance the inelastic scattering near the Dirac point.

Observation of supercurrent in PbIn-graphene-PbIn Josephson junction

Superconductor-graphene-superconductor (SGS) junction provides a unique platform to study relativistic electrodynamics of Dirac fermions combined with proximity-induced superconductivity. We report observation of the Josephson effect in proximity-coupled superconducting junctions of graphene in contact with Pb1-xInx (x=0.07) electrodes for temperatures as high as T = 4.8K, with a large IcRn (~ 255 microV). This demonstrates that Pb1-xInx SGS junction would facilitate the development of the superconducting quantum information devices and superconductor-enhanced phase-coherent transport of graphene.

Complete gate control of supercurrent in graphene p–n junctions

In a conventional Josephson junction of graphene, the supercurrent is not turned off even at the charge neutrality point, impeding further development of superconducting quantum information devices based on graphene. Here we fabricate bipolar Josephson junctions of graphene, in which a p-n potential barrier is formed in graphene with two closely spaced superconducting contacts, and realize supercurrent ON/OFF states using electrostatic gating only. The bipolar Josephson junctions of graphene also show fully gate-driven macroscopic quantum tunnelling behaviour of Josephson phase particles in a potential well, where the confinement energy is gate tuneable. We suggest that the supercurrent OFF state is mainly caused by a supercurrent dephasing mechanism due to a random pseudomagnetic field generated by ripples in graphene, in sharp contrast to other nanohybrid Josephson junctions. Our study may pave the way for the development of new gate-tuneable superconducting quantum information devices.

Electrically Tunable Macroscopic Quantum Tunneling in a Graphene-Based Josephson Junction

Stochastic switching-current distribution in a graphene-based Josephson junction exhibits a crossover from the classical to quantum regime, revealing the macroscopic quantum tunneling of a Josephson phase particle at low temperatures. Microwave spectroscopy measurements indicate a multiphoton absorption process occurring via discrete energy levels in washboard potential well. The crossover temperature for macroscopic quantum tunneling and the quantized level spacing are controlled with the gate voltage, implying its potential application to gate-tunable superconducting quantum bits.

Continuous and reversible tuning of the disorder-driven superconductor–insulator transition in bilayer graphene

The influence of static disorder on a quantum phase transition (QPT) is a fundamental issue in condensed matter physics. As a prototypical example of a disorder-tuned QPT, the superconductor–insulator transition (SIT) has been investigated intensively over the past three decades, but as yet without a general consensus on its nature. A key element is good control of disorder. Here, we present an experimental study of the SIT based on precise in-situ tuning of disorder in dual-gated bilayer graphene proximity-coupled to two superconducting electrodes through electrical and reversible control of the band gap and the charge carrier density. In the presence of a static disorder potential, Andreev-paired carriers formed close to the Fermi level in bilayer graphene constitute a randomly distributed network of proximity-induced superconducting puddles. The landscape of the network was easily tuned by electrical gating to induce percolative clusters at the onset of superconductivity. This is evidenced by scaling behavior consistent with the classical percolation in transport measurements. At lower temperatures, the solely electrical tuning of the disorder-induced landscape enables us to observe, for the first time, a crossover from classical to quantum percolation in a single device, which elucidates how thermal dephasing engages in separating the two regimes.

Tuning locality of pair coherence in graphene-based Andreev interferometers.

We report on gate-tuned locality of superconductivity-induced phase-coherent magnetoconductance oscillations in a graphene-based Andreev interferometer, consisting of a T-shaped graphene bar in contact with a superconducting Al loop. The conductance oscillations arose from the flux change through the superconducting Al loop, with gate-dependent Fraunhofer-type modulation of the envelope. We confirm a transitional change in the character of the pair coherence, between local and nonlocal, in the same device as the effective length-to-width ratio of the device was modulated by tuning the pair-coherence length ξT in the graphene layer.