English

Chiral Majorana edge states in HgTe quantum wells

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2013-09-18 v1 Superconductivity

Abstract

HgTe-based quantum wells (QWs) recently attracted a lot of attention for the realization of a two-dimensional topological insulator with protected helical edge states. Another class of topological systems are topological superconductors (TSCs) with Majorana edge states. In this paper, we show how proximity induced s-wave superconductivity in the bulk of HgTe-QWs and in the presence of a Zeeman field can exhibit a TSC with chiral Majorana edge states. We calculate the topological invariants and the corresponding Majorana edge states explicitly within a four-band model accounting for inversion symmetry breaking terms due to Rashba spin-orbit coupling and bulk inversion asymmetry present in these QWs.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1302.5049,
  title  = {Chiral Majorana edge states in HgTe quantum wells},
  author = {Luzie Weithofer and Patrik Recher},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1302.5049},
  year   = {2013}
}

Comments

18 pages, 8 figures, submitted to New Journal of Physics, "Focus on Majorana Fermions in Condensed Matter"