The growth of Sn-rich group-IV semiconductors at the nanoscale can enrich the understanding of the fundamental properties of metastable GeSn alloys. Here, we demonstrate the effect of the growth conditions on the morphology and composition of Ge/GeSn core/shell nanowires by correlating the experimental observations with a theoretical interpretation based on a multiscale approach. We show that the cross-sectional morphology of Ge/GeSn core/shell nanowires changes from hexagonal to dodecagonal upon increasing the supply of the Sn precursor. This transformation strongly influences the Sn distribution as a higher Sn content is measured under the {112} growth front. Ab initio DFT calculations provide an atomic-scale explanation by showing that Sn incorporation is favored at the {112} surfaces, where the Ge bonds are tensile-strained. A phase-field continuum model was developed to reproduce the morphological transformation and the Sn distribution within the wire, shedding light on the complex growth mechanism and unveiling the relation between segregation and faceting. The tunability of the photoluminescence emission with the change in composition and morphology of the GeSn shell highlights the potential of the core/shell nanowire system for optoelectronic devices operating at mid-infrared wavelengths.

We show a hard superconducting gap in a Ge-Si nanowire Josephson transistor up to in-plane magnetic fields of 250 mT, an important step toward creating and detecting Majorana zero modes in this system. A hard gap requires a highly homogeneous tunneling heterointerface between the superconducting contacts and the semiconducting nanowire. This is realized by annealing devices at 180 °C during which aluminum interdiffuses and replaces the germanium in a section of the nanowire. Next to Al, we find a superconductor with lower critical temperature (TC = 0.9 K) and a higher critical field (BC = 0.9-1.2 T). We can therefore selectively switch either superconductor to the normal state by tuning the temperature and the magnetic field and observe that the additional superconductor induces a proximity supercurrent in the semiconducting part of the nanowire even when the Al is in the normal state. In another device where the diffusion of Al rendered the nanowire completely metallic, a superconductor with a much higher critical temperature (TC = 2.9 K) and critical field (BC = 3.4 T) is found. The small size of these diffusion-induced superconductors inside nanowires may be of special interest for applications requiring high magnetic fields in arbitrary direction.

We present a Josephson junction based on a Ge-Si core-shell nanowire with transparent superconducting Al contacts, a building block which could be of considerable interest for investigating Majorana bound states, superconducting qubits, and Andreev (spin) qubits. We demonstrate the dc Josephson effect in the form of a finite supercurrent through the junction and establish the ac Josephson effect by showing up to 23 Shapiro steps. We observe multiple Andreev reflections up to the sixth order, indicating that charges can scatter elastically many times inside our junction and that our interfaces between superconductor and semiconductor are transparent and have low disorder.

A Ge–Si core–shell nanowire is used to realize a Josephson field-effect transistor with highly transparent contacts to superconducting leads. By changing the electric field, access to two distinct regimes, not combined before in a single device, is gained: in the accumulation mode the device is highly transparent and the supercurrent is carried by multiple subbands, while near depletion, the supercurrent is carried by single-particle levels of a strongly coupled quantum dot operating in the few-hole regime. These results establish Ge–Si nanowires as an important platform for hybrid superconductor–semiconductor physics and Majorana fermions.

We present angle-dependent measurements of the effective g factor g in a Ge-Si core-shell nanowire quantum dot. g is found to be maximum when the magnetic field is pointing perpendicularly to both the nanowire and the electric field induced by local gates. Alignment of the magnetic field with the electric field reduces g significantly. g is almost completely quenched when the magnetic field is aligned with the nanowire axis. These findings confirm recent calculations, where the obtained anisotropy is attributed to a Rashba-type spin-orbit interaction induced by heavy-hole light-hole mixing. In principle, this facilitates manipulation of spin-orbit qubits by means of a continuous high-frequency electric field.

We define single quantum dots of lengths varying from 60 nm up to nearly half a micron in Ge-Si core-shell nanowires. The charging energies scale inversely with the quantum dot length between 18 and 4 meV. Subsequently, we split up a long dot into a double quantum dot with a separate control over the tunnel couplings and the electrochemical potential of each dot. Both single and double quantum dot configurations prove to be very stable and show excellent control over the electrostatic environment of the dots, making this system a highly versatile platform for spin-based quantum computing.

We present measurements on gate-defined double quantum dots in Ge-Si core-shell nanowires, which we tune to a regime with visible shell filling in both dots. We observe a Pauli spin blockade and can assign the measured leakage current at low magnetic fields to spin-flip cotunneling, for which we measure a strong anisotropy related to an anisotropic g factor. At higher magnetic fields we see signatures for leakage current caused by spin-orbit coupling between (1,1) singlet and (2,0) triplet states. Taking into account these anisotropic spin-flip mechanisms, we can choose the magnetic field direction with the longest spin lifetime for improved spin-orbit qubits.