  We investigate proximity induced superconductivity in micrometer-long bismuth
nanowires con- nected to superconducting electrodes with a high critical field.
At low temperature we measure a supercurrent that persists in magnetic fields
as high as the critical field of the electrodes (above 11 T). The critical
current is also strongly modulated by the magnetic field. In certain samples we
find regular, rapid SQUID-like periodic oscillations occurring up to high
fields. Other samples ex- hibit less periodic but full modulations of the
critical current on Tesla field scales, with field-caused extinctions of the
supercurrent. These findings indicate the existence of low dimensionally, phase
coherent, interfering conducting regions through the samples, with a subtle
interplay between orbital and spin contributions. We relate these surprising
results to the electronic properties of the surface states of bismuth, strong
Rashba spin-orbit coupling, large effective g factors, and their effect on the
induced superconducting correlations.
