Majorana fermions in a tunable semiconductor device

By J. Alicea. 2009

751 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The experimental realization of Majorana fermions presents an important problem due to their non-Abelian nature and potential exploitation for topological quantum computation. Very recently Sau et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 040502 (2010)] demonstrated that a topological superconducting phase supporting Majorana fermions can be realized using surprisingly conventional building blocks: a semiconductor quantum well coupled to an s-wave superconductor and a ferromagnetic insulator. Here we propose an alternative setup, wherein a topological superconducting phase is driven by applying an in-plane magnetic field to a (110)-grown semiconductor coupled only to an s-wave superconductor. This device offers a number of advantages, notably a simpler architecture and the ability to tune across a quantum phase transition into the topological superconducting state while still largely avoiding unwanted orbital effects. Experimental feasibility of both setups is discussed in some detail.

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

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ff4a363ad7ce42f06bbf21d094555c8320f7d310

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In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

In Condensed Matter Physics

Citations in the corpus

Topological superconductors: a review (2016, methodology): “Therefore, if swave pairing is induced in such a state by using proximity effect, it also realizes an effective p-wave superconductor [54, 162, 163, 233].”
Topological insulators and superconductors (2010, methodology): “Consequently, the energy of the|P1+z , ↑ (↓)〉 state is pushed down by the effect of SOC, and the energy of the|P2−z , ↑ (↓)〉 state is pushed up.”
Topological Superconductivity in a Planar Josephson Junction (2016, background): “(1) is insufficient to describe a two-dimensional topological superconductor, which requires either an outof-plane Zeeman field [15] or a Dresselhaus spin-orbit interaction [16].”
Effects of Gate-Induced Electric Fields on Semiconductor Majorana Nanowires (2018, background): “[26] Jason Alicea, “Majorana fermions in a tunable semicon-”
Topological superconductivity in two-dimensional altermagnetic metals (2023, background): “Specifically, it realizes a chiral TSC 39–43 characterized by an even Chern number for dominant chiral-p wave pairings, and a helical TSC or a second-order TSC for dominant helical-p wave pairings.”
Two-dimensional epitaxial superconductor-semiconductor heterostructures: A platform for topological superconducting networks (2015, background): “A quantum phase transition from trivial to topological superconducting state can be driven by an external magnetic field, B [2].”
Z2Pack: Numerical Implementation of Hybrid Wannier Centers for Identifying Topological Materials (2016, background): “[33] Jason Alicea, “Majorana fermions in a tunable semiconductor device,” Phys.”