Superconducting proximity effect and Majorana fermions at the surface of a topological insulator

2007/07/31 by Liang Fu, C. L. Kane · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.str-el

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.100.096407

published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 096407 (2008) · 4 pages, 3 figures, published version

arxiv created 2008/04/28 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01

Abstract

We study the proximity effect between an s-wave superconductor and the surface states of a strong topological insulator. The resulting two dimensional state resembles a spinless p_x+ip_y superconductor, but does not break time reversal symmetry. This state supports Majorana bound states at vortices. We show that linear junctions between superconductors mediated by the topological insulator form a non chiral 1 dimensional wire for Majorana fermions, and that circuits formed from these junctions provide a method for creating, manipulating and fusing Majorana bound states.

Cited by

• Emergent superconductivity and non-reciprocal transport in a van der Waals Dirac semimetal/antiferromagnet heterostructure
• Towards Scalable Braiding: Topological Superconductivity Unlocked under Arbitrary Magnetic Field Directions in Curved Planar Josephson Junctions
• Tunable Topological Superconductivity by Fully Compensated Ferrimagnets