Fig. 1: Vertical rectified supercurrents in a van der Waals WTe2 Josephson junction. | Nature Communications

Fig. 1: Vertical rectified supercurrents in a van der Waals WTe2 Josephson junction.

From: Intrinsic supercurrent non-reciprocity coupled to the crystal structure of a van der Waals Josephson barrier

Fig. 1

a Schematic of a NbSe2/Td-WTe2/NbSe2 van der Waals vertical Josephson junction (JJ). The combination of intrinsic inversion symmetry breaking within the Td-WTe2 barrier and time-reversal symmetry breaking by an applied magnetic field give rise to the (vertical) supercurrent non-reciprocity. b Schematic diagram of the crystal structure of WTe2. Orange (blue) symbols represent the W (Te) atoms. θMC is defined as the relative angle between the polar axis along b-axis, the mirror plane of Td-WTe2 (green plane), and the direction of the in-plane (IP) magnetic field \({\mu }_{0}{H}_{\parallel }\) applied within the a-b plane of Td-WTe2 (blue plane). c Current-voltage I–V curves of a van der Waals JJ with a 23 nm thick Td-WTe2 barrier for \({\mu }_{0}{H}_{\parallel }\) = 0 (black), +6 (orange) and −6 (green) mT. Note that \(\theta\) is the angle of \({\mu }_{0}{H}_{\parallel }\) relative to an edge of the rectangular Si wafer on which the JJ was formed.

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