Surface superconductivity in gold – a material platform for Majorana bound states

 · Invited

Abstract

Proximity effect in multilayer heterostructures allows the creation of new quasiparticles with mixed physical characters. In particular, it may lead to the emergence of Majorana bound states (MBS) by mixing superconductivity, ferromagnetism, and spin-orbit coupling at material interfaces. Inducing superconductivity and magnetic exchange interactions in well-defined Shockley surface states (SS) of high quality ultrathin Au(111) layers has been predicted as an excellent platform for MBS [1]. In this talk, I will first present our device based heterostructure platform for creating and investigating such hybrid superconducting states in Au(111) [2]. By means of electron tunneling spectroscopy, I will demonstrate signatures of superconductivity induced in the two-dimensional SS of Au(111) thin film, as well as the behavior of such superconducting state under a planar Zeeman field. Unlike conventional proximity effects, the induced superconductivity in SS that are physically separated from a bulk superconductor may be governed by indirect quasiparticle scattering processes, which would further allow the manipulations of SS for MBS. Our results on planar tunneling devices made of scalable nanowires fabricated from such Au(111) heterostructures will be discussed.
[1.] Potter, A. C. and Lee, P. A., Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 227003 (2010), Phys. Rev. B 85, 094516 (2012)
[2.] Wei, P., et. al., Nano Lett. 16 (4), 2714–2719 (2016)

*The work is supported by John Templeton Foundation Grant No. 39944, ONR Grant N00014-16-1-2657 and NSF (DMR 1700137). Peng Wei acknowledges the funding support from UCR.

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Presenters

  • Peng Wei

    • University of California, Riverside
    • Phyiscs and Astronomy, UCR
    • Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521, USA
    • Physics and Astronomy, UC riverside

Authors

  • Peng Wei

    • University of California, Riverside
    • Phyiscs and Astronomy, UCR
    • Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521, USA
    • Physics and Astronomy, UC riverside

  • Sujit Manna

    • Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    • Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  • Marius Eich

    • Solid State Physics Laboratory, ETH Zurich

  • Patrick Lee

    • Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    • Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    • Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  • Jagadeesh Moodera

    • Dept. Of Physics, Plasma Science and Fusion Center and Francis Bitter Magnet Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    • MIT
    • Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    • Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    • Department of Physics, Plasma Science and Fusion Center, and Francis Bitter Magnet Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    • Plasma Science and Fusion Center and Francis Bitter Magnet Laboratory, MIT
    • Plasma Science and Fusion Center, and Francis Bitter Magnet Laboratory, and Department of Physics, MIT
    • Francis Bitter Magnet Laboratory and Plasma Science and Fusion Center, MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
    • Plasma Science and Fusion Center and Francis Bitter Magnet Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    • Physics, Francis Bitter Magnet Laboratory, Plasma Science and Fusion Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    • Department of Physics, MIT, Cambridge, MA, 02139