No Arabic abstract
A hard proximity-induced superconducting gap has recently been observed in semiconductor nanowire systems at low magnetic fields. However, in the topological regime at high magnetic fields, a soft gap emerges and represents a fundamental obstacle to topologically protected quantum information processing with Majorana bound states. Here we show that in a setup of double Rashba nanowires that are coupled to an s-wave superconductor and subjected to an external magnetic field along the wires, the topological threshold can be significantly reduced by the destructive interference of direct and crossed-Andreev pairing in this setup, precisely down to the magnetic field regime in which current experimental technology allows for a hard superconducting gap. We also show that the resulting Majorana bound states exhibit sufficiently short localization lengths, which makes them ideal candidates for future braiding experiments.
Recent experiments have produced mounting evidence of Majorana zero modes in nanowire-superconductor hybrids. Signatures of an expected topological phase transition accompanying the onset of these modes nevertheless remain elusive. We investigate a fundamental question concerning this issue: Do well-formed Majorana modes necessarily entail a sharp phase transition in these setups? Assuming reasonable parameters, we argue that finite-size effects can dramatically smooth this putative transition into a crossover, even in systems large enough to support well-localized Majorana modes. We propose overcoming such finite-size effects by examining the behavior of low-lying excited states through tunneling spectroscopy. In particular, the excited-state energies exhibit characteristic field and density dependence, and scaling with system size, that expose an approaching topological phase transition. We suggest several experiments for extracting the predicted behavior. As a useful byproduct, the protocols also allow one to measure the wires spin-orbit coupling directly in its superconducting environment.
Developing a gate-tunable, scalable, and topologically-protectable supercurrent qubit and integrating it into a quantum circuit are crucial for applications in the fields of quantum information technology and topological phenomena. Here we propose that the nano-hybrid supercurrent transistors, a superconducting quantum analogue of a transistor, made of topological insulator nanowire would be a promising platform for unprecedented control of both the supercurrent magnitude and the current-phase relation by applying a voltage on a gate electrode. We believe that our experimental design will help probing Majorana state in topological insulator nanowire and establishing a solid-state platform for topological supercurrent qubit.
We study the effect of external electric fields on superconductor-semiconductor coupling by measuring the electron transport in InSb semiconductor nanowires coupled to an epitaxially grown Al superconductor. We find that the gate voltage induced electric fields can greatly modify the coupling strength, which has consequences for the proximity induced superconducting gap, effective g-factor, and spin-orbit coupling, which all play a key role in understanding Majorana physics. We further show that level repulsion due to spin-orbit coupling in a finite size system can lead to seemingly stable zero bias conductance peaks, which mimic the behavior of Majorana zero modes. Our results improve the understanding of realistic Majorana nanowire systems.
We consider transport properties of a hybrid device composed by a quantum dot placed between normal and superconducting reservoirs, and coupled to a Majorana nanowire: a topological superconducting segment hosting Majorana zero-modes at the opposite ends. It is demonstrated that if topologically protected (nonoverlapping) Majorana zero-modes are formed in the system, zero-bias Andreev conductance through the dot exhibits isoconductance profiles with the shape depending on the spin asymmetry of the coupling between a dot and a topological superconductor. Otherwise, for the topologically trivial situation corresponding to the formation of Andreev bound states, the conductance is insensitive to the spin polarization and the isoconductance signatures disappear. This allows to propose an experimental protocol for distinguishing between isolated Majorana zero-modes and Andreev bound states.
We report transport measurements and tunneling spectroscopy in hybrid nanowires with epitaxial layers of superconducting Al and the ferromagnetic insulator EuS, grown on semiconducting InAs nanowires. In devices where the Al and EuS covered facets overlap, we infer a remanent effective Zeeman field of order 1 T, and observe stable zero-bias conductance peaks in tunneling spectroscopy into the end of the nanowire, consistent with topological superconductivity at zero applied field. Hysteretic features in critical current and tunneling spectra as a function of applied magnetic field support this picture. Nanowires with non-overlapping Al and EuS covered facets do not show comparable features. Topological superconductivity in zero applied field allows new device geometries and types of control.