Majorana Fermions in Semiconductor Nanowires
By T. Stanescu, R. Lutchyn. 2011
240 citations recorded by the source corpus.
We study multiband semiconducting nanowires proximity coupled with an $s$-wave superconductor and calculate the topological phase diagram as a function of the chemical potential and magnetic field. The nontrivial topological state corresponds to a superconducting phase supporting an odd number of pairs of Majorana modes localized at the ends of the wire, whereas the nontopological state corresponds to a superconducting phase with no Majoranas or with an even number of pairs of Majorana modes. Our key finding is that multiband occupancy not only lifts the stringent constraint of one-dimensionality, but also allows having higher carrier density in the nanowire. Consequently, multiband nanowires are better suited for stabilizing the topological superconducting phase and for observing the Majorana physics. We present a detailed study of the parameter space for multiband semiconductor nanowires focusing on understanding the key experimental conditions required for the realization and detection of Majorana fermions in solid-state systems. We include various sources of disorder and characterize their effects on the stability of the topological phase. Finally, we calculate the local density of states as well as the differential tunneling conductance as functions of external parameters and predict the experimental signatures that would establish the existence of emergent Majorana zero-energy modes in solid-state systems.
Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Materials Chemistry
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/22bb876ccc445209b55bd9dfbef66270eb7e0e16
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In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
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Citations in the corpus
- Effects of Gate-Induced Electric Fields on Semiconductor Majorana Nanowires (2018, background): “The spin-orbit coupling term hybridizes them [83].”
- Two-dimensional epitaxial superconductor-semiconductor heterostructures: A platform for topological superconducting networks (2015, background): “Theory [28] suggests that the average time spent by a quasiparticle in the Sm region is determined by the hybridization with the metallic states in the S region, 1/Γ (i.”
- Majorana zero modes in superconductor–semiconductor heterostructures (2017, background): “Panels a and b are adapted with permission from reF.(66), American Physical”
- Observation of Majorana Fermions in a Nb-InSb Nanowire-Nb Hybrid Quantum Device (2012, methodology): “In recent years, numerous proposals [7–19] for excitations of Majorana fermions in solid state systems have been made, ranging from exploring ν = 5/2 fractional quantum Hall systems [8, 9], to exploring chiral p-wave superconductors [10], and to exploring hybrid systems of a topological insulator [1”
- InAs-Al hybrid devices passing the topological gap protocol (2022, background): “[27].”
- Anomalous zero-bias conductance peak in a Nb-InSb nanowire-Nb hybrid device. (2012, methodology): “In recent years, numerous proposals [7–19] for excitations of Majorana fermions in solid state systems have been made, ranging from exploring ν = 5/2 fractional quantum Hall systems [8, 9], to exploring chiral p-wave superconductors [10], and to exploring hybrid systems of a topological insulator [1”