In-vacuo growth and fabrication of superconductor-semiconductor hybrid heterostructures for topological quantum computation*

Superconductor-semiconductor heterostructures are the backbone of Majorana Zero Mode (MZM) based topological quantum computing. Magneto-transport in nanowires of InSb with partial shells of aluminum has highlighted the significance of abrupt and epitaxial, in-vacuo growth of superconductors on semiconductors. Going forward, two key challenges need to be addressed. Firstly, the demonstration of in-vacuo, selective area growth of superconductors on wafer-scale semiconductors and, secondly, in-vacuo fabrication of proposed topological qubit devices. This work reports on the Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) of selective area hybrid heterostructures using various approaches with the aim of creating a versatile platform for fabrication of topological qubits in vacuo.