We experimentally demonstrate Cooper pairs' drastic enhancement of the band-to-band radiative recombination rate in a semiconductor. Electron Cooper pairs injected from a superconducting electrode into an active layer by the proximity effect recombine with holes injected from a p-type electrode. The recombination of a Cooper pair with p-type carriers dramatically increases the photon generation...

Proximity-induced superconductivity in a 3D topological insulator represents a new avenue for observing zero-energy Majorana fermions inside vortex cores. Relatively small gaps and low transition temperatures of conventional s-wave superconductors put hard constraints on these experiments. Significantly larger gaps and higher transition temperatures in cuprate superconductors might be an attrac...

Ultrathin Bi2Se3-NbN bilayers comprise a simple proximity system of a topological insulator and an s-wave superconductor for studying gating effects on topological superconductors. Here we report on 3 nm thick NbN layers of weakly connected superconducting islands, overlayed with 10 nm thick Bi2Se3 film which facilitates enhanced proximity coupling between them. Resistance versus temperature of...

The proximity effect in condensed matter physics is a mechanism that naturally produces weak superconductivity. We argue that a braneworld can similarly produce a low-energy breaking of the electroweak symmetry, provided that in addition to the “normal” region, occupied by the conventional phase of QCD, there is a bulk region where the color is in an anisotropic (layered) state with a larger co...

We propose a novel experiment to identify the symmetry of superconductivity on the basis of theoretical results for differential conductance of a normal metal connected to a superconductor. The proximity effect from the superconductor modifies the conductance of the remote current depending remarkably on the pairing symmetry: spin singlet or spin triplet. The clear-cut difference in the conduct...

We investigate the effect of electron-electron interactions on proximity-induced s-wave superconductivity in one-dimensional nanowires. We treat the interactions on a self-consistent mean-field level, and find an analytic expression for the effective pairing potential in the presence of interactions, valid for a weakly tunnel coupled wire. We show that for a set of two nanowires placed in paral...

Nanoscale superconductor/semiconductor hybrid devices are assembled from indium arsenide semiconductor nanowires individually contacted by aluminum-based superconductor electrodes. Below 1 kelvin, the high transparency of the contacts gives rise to proximity-induced superconductivity. The nanowires form superconducting weak links operating as mesoscopic Josephson junctions with electrically tun...

Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. The MIT Faculty has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters. We compare topological insulator materials and Rashba-coupled surfaces as candidates for engineering p + ip superco...