Flux-induced Majorana modes in full-shell nanowires

ORAL

Abstract

We demonstrate a novel means of creating Majorana zero modes using magnetic flux applied to a full superconducting shell surrounding a semiconducting nanowire core, unifying approaches based on proximitized nanowires and vortices in topological superconductors. In the destructive Little-Parks regime, reentrant regions of superconductivity are associated with an integer number of phase windings in the shell. Tunneling into the core reveals a hard induced gap near zero applied flux, corresponding to zero phase winding, and a gapped region with a discrete zero-energy state for flux around $\Phi_{0} = h/2e$, corresponding to $2 \pi$ phase winding. Coulomb peak spacing in full-shell islands around one applied flux shows exponentially decreasing deviation from $1e$ periodicity with device length, consistent with the picture of Majorana modes located at the ends of the wire.

https://arxiv.org/abs/1809.05513

*Research was supported by Microsoft, the Danish National Research Foundation, and the European Commission. M.T.D.~acknowledges support from State Key Laboratory of High Performance Computing, China.

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Presenters

  • Saulius Vaitiekenas

    • Center for Quantum Devices and Microsoft Quantum Lab--Copenhagen, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen
    • Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen

Authors

  • Saulius Vaitiekenas

    • Center for Quantum Devices and Microsoft Quantum Lab--Copenhagen, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen
    • Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen

  • Mingtang Deng

    • Center for Quantum Devices and Microsoft Quantum Lab--Copenhagen, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen

  • Peter Krogstrup

    • Niels Bohr Institute
    • Center for Quantum Devices and Microsoft Quantum Lab--Copenhagen, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen
    • Center for Quantum Devices, Niels Bohr Institute
    • Center for Quantum Devices and Station-Q Copenhagen, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen
    • Center for Quantum Devices, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen
    • Station Q, Microsoft
    • Microsoft Corp

  • Charles M Marcus

    • Microsoft
    • Center for Quantum Devices and Station Q Copenhagen, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen
    • Center for Quantum Devices, University of Copenhagen
    • Center for Quantum Devices and Station Q Copenhagen, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 5, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark
    • Center for Quantum Devices and Microsoft Quantum Lab--Copenhagen, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen
    • Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen
    • Niels Bohr Institute
    • Center for Quantum Devices, Niels Bohr Institute
    • Center for Quantum Devices, Station Q Copenhagen, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen
    • Center for Quantum Devices and Microsoft Quantum Lab–Copenhagen, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark
    • University of Copenhagen
    • Center for Quantum Devices and Station Q Copenhagen, University of Copenhagen