Majorana splitting from critical currents in Josephson junctions

A semiconducting nanowire with strong Rashba spin-orbit coupling and coupled to a superconductor can be tuned by an external Zeeman field into a topological phase with Majorana zero modes. Here we theoretically investigate how this exotic topological superconductor phase manifests in Josephson junct...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: Cayao, Jorge, San-Jose, Pablo, Black-Schaffer, Annica M., Aguado, Ramón, Prada, Elsa
Formato: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2017
País:España
Recursos:Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Repositorio:Biblos-e Archivo. Repositorio Institucional de la UAM
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:repositorio.uam.es:10486/690198
Acesso em linha:http://hdl.handle.net/10486/690198
https://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.96.205425
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palavra-chave:Josephson effect
Majorana fermions
Superconductivity
Física
Descrição
Resumo:A semiconducting nanowire with strong Rashba spin-orbit coupling and coupled to a superconductor can be tuned by an external Zeeman field into a topological phase with Majorana zero modes. Here we theoretically investigate how this exotic topological superconductor phase manifests in Josephson junctions based on such proximitized nanowires. In particular, we focus on critical currents in the short junction limit (LNâ‰ξ, where LN is the junction length and ξ is the superconducting coherence length) and show that they contain important information about nontrivial topology and Majoranas. This includes signatures of the gap inversion at the topological transition and a unique oscillatory pattern that originates from Majorana interference. Interestingly, this pattern can be modified by tuning the transmission across the junction, thus providing complementary evidence of Majoranas and their energy splittings beyond standard tunnel spectroscopy experiments, while offering further tunability by virtue of the Josephson effect