The superconducting diode effect in Josephson junctions fabricated from structurally chiral Mo<sub>3</sub>Al<sub>2</sub>C
ORAL
Abstract
The superconducting diode effect occurs in superconducting materials in which both spin and inversion symmetry are broken. The recently observed chirality-induced spin selectivity effect demonstrates that chiral materials break both symmetries. Thus, a Josephson junction interface with the left-handed structure on one side of the junction and the right-handed structure on the other should exhibit a diode effect. Here, we report the electrical transport properties of right-handed/left-handed and right-handed/right-handed devices fabricated from single crystals of the structurally chiral superconductor Mo3Al2C. A magnetic field-induced superconducting diode effect is demonstrated in both devices by a statistically significant difference in Ic+ and |Ic-|, and we show evidence for a zero-field diode effect in the right-handed/left-handed device but not the righthanded/right-handed device. A maximum asymmetry of 5% is observed in both devices. We provide a few explanations for the presence of the superconducting diode effect in these devices.
*This work was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, National Quantum Information Science Research Centers, Co-Design Center for Quantum Advantage (C2QA) under contract number DE-SC0012704. The MPMS3 system used for magnetic characterization was funded by the National Science Foundation, Division of Materials Research, Major Research Instrumentation Program, under Award No, 1828490. Gregory Bassen acknowledges support from the Harry and Cleio Greer Fellowship.
–
Publication:P. T. Orban, G. Bassen, E. N. Crites, M. A. Siegler, T. M. McQueen, The superconducting diode effect in Josephson junctions fabricated from structurally chiral Mo3Al2C, Preprint arXiv:2508.11629 (2025), Currently under review at Communication Physics
