Quantum Hardware

Researchers Find Superconductivity with 2% Indium Doping

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October 9, 2026 by Ivy Delaney

Superconductivity occurs within selectively grown tin telluride nanowires deposited on indium phosphide; previously, inducing such behaviour required alternative methods. This breakthrough stems from indium diffusing upwards from the substrate into the SnTe during growth, forming a superconducting compound with an indium concentration as low as 2 percent. A new platform is now available for realising *in situ* deposited topological superconductors once trivial bulk states are depleted, improving upon existing techniques.

Superconductivity, the flow of electricity without any resistance, has been successfully created within tin telluride nanowires grown upon indium phosphide. Indium diffusion from the substrate into the tin telluride achieves this effect; even around 2 percent induces it. These findings offer a new way to fabricate materials exhibiting this property and could contribute towards developing more complex components for future quantum computers. Superconductivity, electricity flowing without resistance, occurs within tin telluride nanowires grown on indium phosphide substrates as demonstrated by researchers from the University of Twente and Eindhoven University of Technology.

This remarkable feat arises because indium atoms diffuse upwards from the substrate into the tin telluride during growth, creating a superconducting compound; just 2 percent indium concentration is sufficient to induce this behaviour. A topological crystalline insulator acts like an ordinary insulator internally but enables electrical current to flow freely along its surfaces, much as traffic continues moving on a highway despite obstructions below the road itself.

The team observed repeating variations in electrical resistance, known as Little-Parks oscillations, suggesting superconductivity, yet found evidence indicating that unwanted electron pathways are masking any truly unique quantum properties of the material. Refining these fabrication techniques may unlock access to more strong topological superconductors suitable for future technologies.

Indium diffusion enables intrinsic superconductivity in tin telluride nanowires

A concentration of just two percent indium within tin telluride nanowires results in a transition temperature up to up to several Kelvins. Previously achieving this required alternative methods such as external superconductors or complex layering techniques. This new approach provides a platform for realising topological superconductivity once unwanted electrical pathways are removed, surpassing limitations found in earlier designs.

Detailed transport studies across twelve fabricated devices consistently revealed zero differential resistance at low bias currents before transitioning into a type-II superconducting state characterised by re-entrant resistance and critical current values. Supercurrent flow was confirmed through observations of Little-Parks oscillations within looped nanowire networks; however, conclusive evidence of a topologically protected state remained elusive due to competing conduction channels. Spectroscopic analysis verified that even with estimated indium levels of only a few percent at the interface, their *in situ* diffusion process from the underlying substrate proved highly efficient.

Loop-shaped networks also exhibited behaviour consistent with vortex movement, small disturbances in the superconducting material, supporting supercurrent flow without any indication of contact-induced effects or Josephson junctions typically seen when using metallic contacts. Currently, the 50 nanometre width and 10 micrometer length of fabricated nanowires still present significant challenges for practical quantum computing applications.

Indium diffusion consistently generates superconductivity despite prevalent non-topological conductance

The pursuit of topological quantum computation relies on materials exhibiting exotic states of matter, specifically those behaving as superconductors without electrical resistance; inducing this behaviour is a key challenge. These observations successfully demonstrated superconductivity arising from indium diffusing into tin telluride nanowires but highlight a frustrating tension within the field. This tension stems from the dominance of ‘trivial’ conduction pathways that obscure any genuine signatures of topologically protected electron flow.

Despite lacking a clear topological signal, inducing superconductivity within these nanowires remains significant and pinpoints a crucial obstacle to overcome in materials engineering for future quantum technologies. Indium diffusion has induced superconductivity in tin telluride nanowires, representing an important step towards topological quantum computing applications. Growing tin telluride nanowires on indium phosphide establishes superconductivity and offers a new pathway toward realising components for future quantum technologies. While Little-Parks oscillations confirmed supercurrent flow within looped structures, analysis revealed that conventional electrical pathways currently dominate over any potential topological signals.

The research demonstrated that inducing superconductivity is possible in tin telluride nanowires via diffusion of indium from an underlying substrate. This finding means scientists can reliably generate superconductivity, the lossless flow of electricity, within these heterostructures using a defined materials process. Although evidence for a topologically protected state was not observed due to competing non-topological conductance channels, this work identifies a key challenge in fabricating suitable components for quantum technologies. The authors fabricated nanowires with widths of 50 nanometres and lengths of 10 micrometres during the study.

👉 More information
🗞 Induced superconductivity in selective-area grown SnTe devices
✍️ Maarten J. G. Kamphuis, Yoran F. S. Starmans, Pim J. H. Lueb, Femke J. Witmans, Marvin M. Jansen-Zilles, Marcel A. Verheijen, Reinoud Lavrijsen, Joost Ridderbos, Fabrizio Nichele, Floris A. Zwanenburg, Erik P. A. M. Bakkers and Alexander Brinkman
🧠 ArXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.15778

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Ivy Delaney

Ivy Delaney has been working with neural networks and machine learning since the mid-nineties, back when a couple of hidden layers and a long afternoon of training counted as ambitious. She has watched the field go from academic curiosity to the thing quietly running underneath everything, and she brings that long view to quantum computing. For Quantum Zeitgeist she covers the ground where the two fields meet. That means quantum machine learning and the variational algorithms it leans on, and it also means the less glamorous but more interesting story of classical machine learning already doing real work inside quantum machines, decoding error-correcting codes, calibrating noisy hardware and learning the error models that simulators depend on. She writes about the hardware those algorithms have to run on too, and about the post-quantum cryptography scramble that the same hardware has set off. Her stories typically start with the paper, whether that is peer-reviewed work, conference proceedings or an arXiv preprint, with the source linked so you can hold a claim up against the research it came from. She is unimpressed by benchmarks that will not say what they beat, and by demonstrations that only work in the press release.

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