2014/01/31 by Fernando de Juan, Roni Ilan, Jens H. Bardarson
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Andreev reflection #Condensed matter physics #Conductance #Graphene research and applications #MAJORANA #Magnetic field #Nanowire #Physics #Quantization (signal processing) #Quantum many-body systems #Quantum mechanics #Superconductivity #Topological Materials and Phenomena #Topological insulator #Topology (electrical circuits) #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.supr-con
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.113.107003
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 107003 (2014) · 5 pages, 3 figures
openalex publication_date 2014/09/05 · arxiv created 2014/09/08 · arxiv updated 2014/09/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Finding a clear signature of topological superconductivity in transport experiments remains an outstanding challenge. In this work, we propose exploiting the unique properties of three-dimensional topological insulator nanowires to generate a normal-superconductor junction in the single-mode regime where an exactly quantized 2e2/h zero-bias conductance can be observed over a wide range of realistic system parameters. This is achieved by inducing superconductivity in half of the wire, which can be tuned at will from trivial to topological with a parallel magnetic field, while a perpendicular field is used to gap out the normal part, except for two spatially separated chiral channels. The combination of chiral mode transport and perfect Andreev reflection makes the measurement robust to moderate disorder, and the quantization of conductance survives to much higher temperatures than in tunnel junction experiments. Our proposal may be understood as a variant of a Majorana interferometer which is easily realizable in experiments.