English

A novel platform for two-dimensional chiral topological superconductivity

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2016-07-29 v1 Superconductivity

Abstract

We show that the surface of an ss-wave superconductor decorated with a two-dimensional lattice of magnetic impurities can exhibit chiral topological superconductivity. If impurities order ferromagnetically and the superconducting surface supports a sufficiently strong Rashba-type spin-orbit coupling, Shiba sub-gap states at impurity locations can hybridize into Bogoliubov bands with non-vanishing, sometimes large, Chern number CC. This topological superconductor supports CC chiral Majorana edge modes. We construct phase diagrams for model two-dimensional superconductors, accessing the dilute and dense magnetic impurity limits analytically and the intermediate regime numerically. To address potential experimental systems, we identify stable configurations of ferromagnetic iron atoms on the Pb (111) surface and conclude that ferromagnetic adatoms on Pb surfaces can provide a versatile platform for two-dimensional topological superconductivity.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1501.00999,
  title  = {A novel platform for two-dimensional chiral topological superconductivity},
  author = {Jian Li and Titus Neupert and Zhi Jun Wang and A. H. MacDonald and A. Yazdani and B. Andrei Bernevig},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1501.00999},
  year   = {2016}
}
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