Anisotropy of PbTe nanowires with and without a superconductor

We investigate the anisotropic behaviors in PbTe and PbTe-Pb hybrid nanowires. In previous studies on PbTe, wire-to-wire variations in anisotropy indicate significant device disorder, posing a serious challenge for applications. Here, we achieve reproducible anisotropy in PbTe nanowires through a substantial reduction of disorder. We then couple PbTe to a superconductor Pb, and observe a pronounced deviation in the anisotropy behavior compared to bare PbTe nanowires. This deviation is gate tunable and attributed to the spin-orbit interaction and orbital effect, controlled by charge transfer between Pb and PbTe. These results provide guidance for the controlled engineering of exotic quantum states in this hybrid material platform.