Epitaxial growth of single unit-cell superconducting β-Bi2Pd

Abstract

Bismuth-based binary alloy β-Bi2Pd has recently been suggested as a connate topological superconductor with immense promise for Majorana zero modes. However, the epitaxial thin films down to the ultimate level of single unit-cell have been challenging. Here, we employed the state-of-the-art molecular beam epitaxy to prepare single unit-cell superconducting β-Bi2Pd films with lateral dimensions of hundreds of nanometers. Utilizing in situ scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy, we uncover evidence of anisotropic superconductivity whose spectra are well fit by anisotropic s-wave gap functions and demonstrate that the epitaxial growth of β-Bi2Pd films relies substantially on the substrate temperature, flux ratio, growth rate, and coverage. The high-quality epitaxial films provide a promising platform to investigate the topological superconductivity at the two-dimensional limit.