Related papers: Josephson supercurrent through a topological insul…
Topological superconductors, whose edge hosts Majorana bound states or Majorana fermions that obey non-Abelian statistics, can be used for low-decoherence quantum computations. Most of the proposed topological superconductors are realized…
The surface of a 3D topological insulator is conducting and the topologically nontrivial nature of the surface states is observed in experiments. It is the aim of this paper to review and analyze experimental observations with respect to…
We study Josephson junctions made of semiconducting nanowires with Rashba spin-orbit coupling, where superconducting correlations are induced by the proximity effect. In the presence of a suitably directed magnetic field, the system…
We reveal the existence of a new type of topological Josephson effect involving type II superconductors and three-dimensional topological insulators as tunnel junctions. We predict that vortex lines induce a variant of the Witten effect…
The Josephson supercurrent in a Nb-InAs nanowire-Nb junction was studied experimentally. The nanowire goes superconducting due to the proximity effect, and can sustain a phase coherent supercurrent. An unexpected modulation of the junction…
Junctions created by coupling two superconductors via a semiconductor nanowire in the presence of high magnetic fields are the basis for detection, fusion, and braiding of Majorana bound states. We study NbTiN/InSb nanowire/NbTiN Josephson…
Topological superconductivity is central to a variety of novel phenomena involving the interplay between topologically ordered phases and broken-symmetry states. The key ingredient is an unconventional order parameter, with an orbital…
We study superconducting-normal-superconducting (SNS) Josephson junctions in one-dimensional topological superconductors which support more than one Majorana end mode. The variation of the energy spectrum with the superconducting phase is…
Topological insulators are a recently discovered class of materials with fascinating properties: While the inside of the solid is insulating, fundamental symmetry considerations require the surfaces to be metallic. The metallic surface…
We study analytically an underdamped current-biased topological Josephson junction. First, we consider a simplified model at zero temperature, where the parity of the non-local fermionic state formed by Majorana bound states (MBSs)…
The fractional Josephson effect has been observed in many instances as a signature of a topological superconducting state containing zero-energy Majorana modes. We present a nontopological scenario which can produce a fractional Josephson…
A planar Josephson junction with a normal metal attached on its top surface will form a hollow nanowire structure due to its three dimensional nature. In such hollow nanowire structure, the magnetic flux induced by a small magnetic field…
We investigate Josephson currents in mesoscopic rings with a weak link which are in or near a topological superconducting phase. As a paradigmatic example, we consider the Kitaev model of a spinless p-wave superconductor in one dimension,…
We propose a new setup for creating Majorana bound states in a two-dimensional electron gas Josephson junction. Our proposal relies exclusively on a supercurrent parallel to the junction as a mechanism of breaking time-reversal symmetry. We…
We theoretically study topological superconductivity in elongated planar Josephson junctions. In the presence of spin-orbit coupling and an in-plane magnetic field, the Josephson junction can enter the topological phase and host zero-energy…
We consider a Josephson contact mediated by 1D chiral modes on a surface of a 3D topological insulator with superimposed superconducting and magnetic layers. The system represents an interferometer in which 1D chiral Majorana modes on the…
Topological Josephson junctions designed on the surface of a 3D-topological insulator (TI) harbor Majorana bound states (MBS's) among a continuum of conventional Andreev bound states. The distinct feature of these MBS's lies in the…
Certain insulating materials with strong spin-orbit coupling can conduct currents along their edges or surfaces. This phenomenon arises from the non-trivial topological properties of the electronic band-structure, and is somewhat similar to…
We propose two experiments to probe the Majorana fermion edge states that occur at a junction between a superconductor and a magnet deposited on the surface of a topological insulator. Combining two Majorana fermions into a single Dirac…
We discuss electric transport through a point contact which bridges Majorana fermion modes appearing at edges of two helical superconductors. The contents focus on effects of interference and interaction unique to the Majorana fermions and…