Josephson Diode Effect in High-Mobility InSb Nanoflags

We report nonreciprocal dissipation-less transport in single ballistic InSb nanoflag Josephson junctions. Applying an in plane magnetic field, we observe an inequality in supercurrent for the two opposite current propagation directions. Thus, these devices can work as Josephson diodes, with dissipation-less current flowing in only one direction. For small fields, the supercurrent asymmetry increases linearly with external field, and then it saturates as the Zeeman energy becomes relevant, before it finally decreases to zero at higher fields. The effect is maximum when the in-plane field is perpendicular to the current vector, which identifies Rashba spin- orbit coupling as the main symmetry-breaking mechanism. While a variation in carrier concentration in these high-quality InSb nanoflags does not significantly influence the supercurrent asymmetry, it is instead strongly suppressed by an increase in temperature. Our experimental findings are consistent with a model for ballistic short junctions and show that the diode effect is intrinsic to this material.

Automated summary

We report nonreciprocal dissipation-less transport in single ballistic InSb nanoflag Josephson junctions. An inequality in supercurrent for the two opposite current propagation directions is observed by applying an in-plane magnetic field, indicating that these devices can function as Josephson diodes. The supercurrent asymmetry increases linearly with external field for small fields, saturates as the Zeeman energy becomes relevant, and then decreases to zero at higher fields. The effect is maximized when the in-plane field is perpendicular to the current vector, suggesting Rashba spin-orbit coupling as the main symmetry-breaking mechanism.