No Arabic abstract
We present analytical and numerical results for the electronic spectra of wires of a d-wave superconductor on a square lattice. The spectra of Andreev and other quasiparticle states, as well as the spatial and particle-hole structures of their wave functions, depend on interference effects caused by the presence of the surfaces and are qualitatively different for half-filled wires with even or odd number of chains. For half-filled wires with an odd number of chains N at (110) orientation, spectra consist of N doubly degenerate branches. By contrast, for even N wires, these levels are split, and all quasiparticle states, even the ones lying above the maximal gap, have the characteristic properties of Andreev bound states. These Andreev states above the gap can be interpreted as a consequence of an infinite sequence of Andreev reflections experienced by quasiparticles along their trajectories bounded by the surfaces of the wire. Our microscopic results for the local density of states display atomic-scale Friedel oscillations due to the presence of the surfaces, which should be observable by scanning tunneling microscopy. For narrow wires the self-consistent treatment of the order parameter is found to play a crucial role. In particular, we find that for small wire widths the finite geometry may drive strong fluctuations or even stablilize exotic quasi-1D pair states with spin triplet character.
We study the spectrum of Andreev bound states and Josephson currents across a junction of $N$ superconducting wires which may have $s$- or $p$-wave pairing symmetries and develop a scattering matrix based formalism which allows us to address transport across such junctions. For $N ge 3$, it is well known that Berry curvature terms contribute to the Josephson currents; we chart out situations where such terms can have relatively large effects. For a system of three $s$- or three $p$-wave superconductors, we provide analytic expressions for the Andreev bound state energies and study the Josephson currents in response to a constant voltage applied across one of the wires; we find that the integrated transconductance at zero temperature is quantized to integer multiples of $4e^2/h$, where $e$ is the electron charge and $h = 2pi hbar$ is Plancks constant. For a sinusoidal current with frequency $omega$ applied across one of the wires in the junction, we find that Shapiro plateaus appear in the time-averaged voltage $langle V_1 rangle$ across that wire for any rational fractional multiple (in contrast to only integer multiples in junctions of two wires) of $2e langle V_1 rangle/(hbar omega)$. We also use our formalism to study junctions of two $p$- and one $s$-wave wires. We find that the corresponding Andreev bound state energies depend on the spin of the Bogoliubov quasiparticles; this produces a net magnetic moment in such junctions. The time variation of these magnetic moments may be controlled by an external applied voltage across the junction. We discuss experiments which may test our theory.
A superconductor with $p_x+ip_y$ order has long fascinated the physics community because vortex defects in such a system host Majorana zero modes. Here we propose a simple construction of a chiral superconductor using proximitized quantum wires and twist angle engineering as basic ingredients. We show that a weakly coupled parallel array of such wires forms a gapless $p$-wave superconductor. Two such arrays, stacked on top of one another with a twist angle close to $90^circ$, spontaneously break time reversal symmetry and form a robust, fully gapped $p_x+ip_y$ superconductor. We map out topological phases of the proposed system, demonstrate existence of Majorana zero modes in vortices, and discuss prospects for experimental realization.
Angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy is used to observe changes in the electronic structure of bulk-doped topological insulator Cu$_x$Bi$_2$Se$_3$ as additional copper atoms are deposited onto the cleaved crystal surface. Carrier density and surface-normal electrical field strength near the crystal surface are estimated to consider the effect of chemical surface gating on atypical superconducting properties associated with topological insulator order, such as the dynamics of theoretically predicted Majorana Fermion vortices.
Recent experiments have shown that proximity with high-temperature superconductors induces unconventional superconducting correlations in graphene. Here we demonstrate that those correlations propagate hundreds of nanometer, allowing for the unique observation of $d$-wave Andreev pair interferences in YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_7$-graphene devices that behave as a Fabry-Perot cavity. The interferences show as a series of pronounced conductance oscillations analogous to those originally predicted by de Gennes--Saint-James for conventional metal-superconductor junctions. The present work is pivotal to the study of exotic directional effects expected for nodal superconductivity in Dirac materials.
The current-voltage characteristics of long and narrow superconducting channels are investigated using the time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau equations for complex order parameter. We found out that the steps in the current voltage characteristic can be associated with bifurcations of either steady or oscillatory solution. We revealed typical instabilities which induced the singularities in current-voltage characteristics, and analytically estimated period of oscillations and average voltage in the vicinity of the critical currents. Our results show that these bifurcations can substantially complicate dynamics of the order parameter and eventually lead to appearance of such phenomena as multistability and chaos. The discussed bifurcation phenomena sheds a light on some recent experimental findings.