Scanning gate microscopy mapping of edge current and branched electron flow in a transition metal dichalcogenide nanoribbon and quantum point contact.

We study scanning gate microscopy conductance mapping of a [Formula: see text] zigzag ribbon exploiting tight-binding and continuum models. We show that, even though the edge modes of a pristine nanoribbon are robust to backscattering on the potential induced by the tip, the conductance mapping reveals presence of both the edge modes and the quantized spin- and valley-current carrying modes. By inspecting the electron flow from a split gate quantum point contact (QPC) we find that the mapped current flow allows to determine the nature of the quantization in the QPC as spin-orbit coupling strength affects the number of branches in which the current exits the constriction. The radial conductance oscillation fringes found in the conductance mapping reveal the presence of two possible wavevectors for the charge carriers that correspond to spin and valley opposite modes. Finally, we show that disorder induced valley mixing leads to a beating pattern in the radial fringes.

Conductance through a helical state in an Indium antimonide nanowire.

The motion of an electron and its spin are generally not coupled. However in a one-dimensional material with strong spin-orbit interaction (SOI) a helical state may emerge at finite magnetic fields, where electrons of opposite spin will have opposite momentum. The existence of this helical state has applications for spin filtering and cooper pair splitter devices and is an essential ingredient for realizing topologically protected quantum computing using Majorana zero modes. Here, we report measurements of a quantum point contact in an indium antimonide nanowire. At magnetic fields exceeding 3 T, the 2 e 2/h conductance plateau shows a re-entrant feature toward 1 e 2/h which increases linearly in width with magnetic field. Rotating the magnetic field clearly attributes this experimental signature to SOI and by comparing our observations with a numerical model we extract a spin-orbit energy of approximately 6.5 meV, which is stronger than the spin-orbit energy obtained by other methods.Indium antimonide nanowires have large spin-orbit coupling, which can give rise to helical states that are an important part of proposals for topological quantum computing. Here the authors measure conductance through the helical states and extract a larger spin-orbit energy than obtained before.

Quantized conductance doubling and hard gap in a two-dimensional semiconductor-superconductor heterostructure.

Coupling a two-dimensional (2D) semiconductor heterostructure to a superconductor opens new research and technology opportunities, including fundamental problems in mesoscopic superconductivity, scalable superconducting electronics, and new topological states of matter. One route towards topological matter is by coupling a 2D electron gas with strong spin-orbit interaction to an s-wave superconductor. Previous efforts along these lines have been adversely affected by interface disorder and unstable gating. Here we show measurements on a gateable InGaAs/InAs 2DEG with patterned epitaxial Al, yielding devices with atomically pristine interfaces between semiconductor and superconductor. Using surface gates to form a quantum point contact (QPC), we find a hard superconducting gap in the tunnelling regime. When the QPC is in the open regime, we observe a first conductance plateau at 4e2/h, consistent with theory. The hard-gap semiconductor-superconductor system demonstrated here is amenable to top-down processing and provides a new avenue towards low-dissipation electronics and topological quantum systems.

Canadian Native Indians exhibit unique CYP2A6 and CYP2C19 mutant allele frequencies.

Many human cytochromes P450 (CYP) enzymes are polymorphically expressed, resulting in interindividual and interethnic differences in the metabolism of substrate drugs. Little is known about the genetic variation of CYP enzymes in Canadian Native Indians. We therefore determined the CYP2C19 and CYP2A6 mutant allele frequencies in 159 Canadian Native Indians and compared them with white and Asian subjects. Canadian Native Indians differed significantly from both white and Asian populations in allelic patterns of both CYP2C19 (19.1% CYP2C19*2 and 0% CYP2C19*3) and CYP2A6 (0.9% CYP2A6*2 and 13.9% CYP2A6*3). In addition, analysis of the Canadian Native Indian data suggested that there may be an association between the presence of the CYP2C19 and CYP2A6 mutant alleles such that the co-occurrence of these 2 alleles is higher than would be predicted on the basis of their individual frequencies in this population.