Published January 16, 2024 | Version v1
Journal article

Majorana Zero Modes Induced by the Meissner Effect at Small Magnetic Field

  • 1. School of Physics and Institute for Quantum Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, China
  • 2. Hubei Key Laboratory of Gravitation and Quantum Physics and Wuhan National High Magnetic Field Center, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, China
  • 3. Wuhan Institute of Quantum Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430074, China
  • 4. State Key Laboratory of Low Dimensional Quantum Physics, Department of Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China
  • 5. Kavli Institute for Theoretical Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China

Description

One key difficulty in realizing Majorana zero modes (MZMs) is the required high magnetic field, which causes serious issues, e.g., shrinks the superconducting gap, reduces topological region, and weakens their robustness against disorders. In this Letter, we propose that the Meissner effect can bring the topological superconducting phase to a superconductor/topological-insulator/superconductor (SC/TI/SC) hybrid system. Remarkably, the required magnetic field strength (<10mT) to support MZMs has been reduced by several orders of magnitude compared to that (>0.5T) in the previous schemes. Tuning the phase difference between the top and bottom superconductors can control the number and position of the MZMs. In addition, we account for the electrostatic potential in the superconductor/topological-insulator (SC/TI) interface through the self-consistent Schrödinger-Poisson calculation, which shows the experimental accessibility of our proposal. Our proposal only needs a small magnetic field of less than 10 mT and is robust against the chemical potential fluctuation, which makes the SC/TI/SC hybrid an ideal Majorana platform.

Additional details

Identifiers

DOI
10.1103/PhysRevLett.132.036602;
arXiv
arXiv:2302.04710;
Crossref Funder ID
10.13039/501100001809; 10.13039/501100002367; 10.13039/501100002858;

Publishing Information

Journal Title
Physical Review Letters
Journal Volume
132
Journal Issue
3
Journal Page Range
7 pgs.
ISSN
0031-9007

Optional Information

Copyright
© 2024 American Physical Society
Contract/Grant/Project number
12074133; 11674278; 11974198; JZHKYPT-2021-08; 2023M731208; 2021ZD0302700; 2021ZD0302400; XDB28000000
Notes
Contact Email: dongeliu@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn; Contact Email: fuchun@ucas.ac.cn; Contact Email: phyliuxin@hust.edu.cn; Record automatically processed
Funding organization
National Natural Science Foundation of China; Chinese Academy of Sciences; China Postdoctoral Science Foundation; Innovation Program for Quantum Science and Technology; Priority Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences