English

Proximity-induced Majorana hinge modes in antiferromagnetic topological insulators

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2019-05-22 v3 Materials Science Superconductivity

Abstract

We propose a realization of chiral Majorana modes propagating on the hinges of a 3D antiferromagnetic topological insulator, which was recently theoretically predicted and experimentally confirmed in the tetradymite-type MnBi2Te4\mathrm{MnBi_2Te_4}-related ternary chalgogenides. These materials consist of ferromagnetically ordered 2D layers, whose magnetization direction alternates between neighboring layers, forming an antiferromagnetic order. Besides surfaces with a magnetic gap, there also exsist gapless surfaces with a single Dirac cone, which can be gapped out when proximity coupled to an ss-wave superconductor. On the sharing edges between the two types of gapped surfaces, the chiral Majorana modes emerge. We further propose experimental signatures of these Majoana hinge modes in terms of two-terminal conductance measurements.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1809.09112,
  title  = {Proximity-induced Majorana hinge modes in antiferromagnetic topological insulators},
  author = {Yang Peng and Yong Xu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1809.09112},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

9 pages, 6 figures