Proximity effect at the superconductor–topological insulator interface

2010/02/28 by Tudor D. Stanescu, Jay D. Sau, Roman M. Lutchyn +1 · 9 citations
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #Graphene research and applications #Topological Materials and Phenomena #cond-mat.mtrl-sci #cond-mat.supr-con

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.81.241310

published as Phys. Rev. B 81, 241310(R) (2010) · 4+ pages, 3 figures (published version)

arxiv created 2010/06/24 · openalex publication_date 2010/06/24 · arxiv updated 2010/06/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04

Abstract

We study the excitation spectrum of a topological insulator in contact with an s-wave superconductor, starting from a microscopic model, and develop an effective low-energy model for the proximity effect. In the vicinity of the Dirac cone vertex, the effective model describing the states localized at the interface is well approximated by a model of Dirac electrons experiencing superconducting s-wave pairing. Away from the cone vertex, the induced pairing potential develops a p-wave component with a magnitude sensitive to the structure of the interface. Observing the induced s-wave superconductivity may require tuning the chemical potential close to the Dirac point. Furthermore, we find that the proximity of the superconductor leads to a significant renormalization of the original parameters of the effective model describing the surface states of a topological insulator.

Citations

• Time Reversal Polarization and a Z₂ Adiabatic Spin Pump
• Fault-tolerant quantum computation by anyons

Cited by

• Mott scattering at the interface between a metal and a topological insulator
• Proximity-induced superconductivity and Josephson critical current in quantum spin Hall systems
• Andreev bound states versus Majorana bound states in quantum dot-nanowire-superconductor hybrid structures: Trivial versus topological zero-bias conductance peaks
• Stability of Unconventional Superconductivity on Surfaces of Topological Insulators
• Electrically controllable spin filtering based on superconducting helical states
• Conductance smearing and anisotropic suppression of induced superconductivity in a Majorana nanowire
• Unconventional proximity-induced superconductivity in bilayer systems
• Gap oscillations and Majorana bound states in magnetic chains on superconducting honeycomb lattices
• Majorana fermions in semiconductor nanowires

Related

• Proximity effect can induce the energy gap rather than superconducting pair potential
• Superconducting proximity effect and Majorana fermions at the surface of a topological insulator
• Proximity induced superconductivity in a topological insulator
• Unconventional superconductivity on a topological insulator
• Repulsive-Interaction-Driven Topological Superconductivity in a Landau Level Coupled to an s-Wave Superconductor