  Semiconductor nanowires coupled to a superconductor provide a powerful
testbed for quantum device physics such as Majorana zero modes and gate-tunable
hybrid qubits. The performance of these quantum devices heavily relies on the
quality of the induced superconducting gap. A hard gap, evident as vanishing
subgap conductance in tunneling spectroscopy, is both necessary and desired.
Previously, a hard gap has been achieved and extensively studied in III-V
semiconductor nanowires (InAs and InSb). In this study, we present the
observation of a hard superconducting gap in PbTe nanowires coupled to a
superconductor Pb. The gap size ($\Delta$) is $\sim$ 1 meV (maximally 1.3 meV
in one device). Additionally, subgap Andreev bound states can also be created
and controlled through gate tuning. Tuning a device into the open regime can
reveal Andreev enhancement of the subgap conductance, suggesting a remarkable
transparent superconductor-semiconductor interface, with a transparency of
$\sim$ 0.96. These results pave the way for diverse superconducting quantum
devices based on PbTe nanowires.
