2023/07/06 by R. C. Bento Ribeiro, J. H. Correa, Ribeiro, R. C. Bento +15 · 1 citation
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Crystallography and Radiation Phenomena #FOS: Physical sciences #Graphene research and applications #Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) #Topological Materials and Phenomena
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2307.03185
openalex publication_date 2023/07/06 · openalex created_date 2023/07/08 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
We theoretically investigate the possibility of obtaining Majorana zero modes (MZMs) in penta-silicene nanoribbons (p-SiNRs) with induced p-wave superconductivity. The model explicitly considers an external magnetic field perpendicularly applied to the nanoribbon plane, as well as an extrinsic Rashba spin-orbit coupling (RSOC), in addition to the first nearest neighbor hopping term and p-wave superconducting pairing. By analyzing the dispersion relation profiles, we observe the successive closing and reopening of the induced superconducting gap with a single spin component, indicating a spin-polarized topological phase transition (TPT). Correspondingly, the plots of the energy spectrum versus the chemical potential reveal the existence of zero-energy states with a preferential spin orientation characterized by nonoverlapping wave functions localized at opposite ends of the superconducting p-SiNRs. These findings strongly suggest the emergence of topologically protected, spin-polarized MZMs at the ends of the p-SiNRs with induced p-wave superconducting pairing, which can be realized by proximitizing the nanoribbon with an s-wave superconductor, such as lead. The proposal paves the way for silicene-based Majorana devices hosting multiple MZMs with a well-defined spin orientation, with possible applications in fault-tolerant quantum computing platforms and Majorana spintronics.