Engineering Superconductivity in Bernal Bilayer Graphene via Proximity-Induced Spin Orbit Coupling

Graphene-based heterostructures have shown a wide variety of phases associated with strong electronic correlations, including electric and magnetic field stabilized superconductivity in bilayer and trilayer graphene[1][2]. Finding ways to understand and stabilize the pairing mechanism in these systems is of fundamental interest. Recently, the critical temperature of the electric field-induced superconductivity in Bernal bilayer graphene (BLG) was shown to be increased by proximity induced spin orbit coupling [3]. Here, we study the effects of spin orbit coupling on BLG by placing it on a transition metal dichalchogenide, WSe_2, with controlled stacking angles. We explore the varied phase diagram in electronic transport via doping and electric and magnetic field dependence. We can also alter the twist angle between BLG and WSe_2, which theoretically tunes the strength of the spin orbit coupling. We then fabricate a variety of Josephson junctions to probe properties of the observed superconducting phase. We will discuss our efforts to understand the phase diagram of BLG and extend our observations to the graphene-based family of superconductors.



[1] H. Zhou, et al. Science 375, 774 (2022)

[2] H. Zhou, et al. Nature 598, 434 (2021)

[3] Y. Zhang, et al. arXiv:2205:05087 (2022)