Topological Superconductivity in a Planar Josephson Junction

By F. Pientka, A. Keselman, Erez Berg, A. Yacoby, A. Stern, B. Halperin. 2016

230 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We consider a two-dimensional electron gas with strong spin-orbit coupling contacted by two superconducting leads, forming a Josephson junction. We show that in the presence of an in-plane Zeeman field the quasi-one-dimensional region between the two superconductors can support a topological superconducting phase hosting Majorana bound states at its ends. We study the phase diagram of the system as a function of the Zeeman field and the phase difference between the two superconductors (treated as an externally controlled parameter). Remarkably, at a phase difference of $\pi$, the topological phase is obtained for almost any value of the Zeeman field and chemical potential. In a setup where the phase is not controlled externally, we find that the system undergoes a first-order topological phase transition when the Zeeman field is varied. At the transition, the phase difference in the ground state changes abruptly from a value close to zero, at which the system is trivial, to a value close to $\pi$, at which the system is topological. The critical current through the junction exhibits a sharp minimum at the critical Zeeman field, and is therefore a natural diagnostic of the transition. We point out that in presence of a symmetry under a modified mirror reflection followed by time reversal, the system belongs to a higher symmetry class and the phase diagram as a function of the phase difference and the Zeeman field becomes richer.

Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Condensed Matter Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/dba2061d172486cbf65de2db8fe95a2701b5fc5b

How researchers see this paper

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In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

1. K. Flensberg
2. F. von Oppen
3. A. Stern
4. C. Beenakker
5. Masatoshi Sato
6. J. Alicea
7. Y. Ando

In Condensed Matter Physics

1. K. Flensberg
2. A. Stern
3. F. von Oppen

Citations in the corpus

• Engineered platforms for topological superconductivity and Majorana zero modes (2021, background): “Panel b adapted from ref.(69), CC BY 4.”