Related papers: McGill University M. Sc. Thesis: Topological Super…
Majorana Fermions, strange particles that are their own antiparticles, were predicted in 1937 and have been sought after ever since. In condensed matter they are predicted to exist as vortex core or edge excitations in certain exotic…
This is a colloquium-style introduction to the midgap excitations in superconductors known as Majorana fermions. These elusive particles, equal to their own antiparticle, may or may not exist in Nature as elementary building blocks, but in…
Superconductivity in topological materials has drawn a significant interest of the scientific community as these materials provide a hint of the existence of Majorana fermions conceived from the quantized thermal conductivity, a zero-biased…
This short review article provides a pedagogical introduction to the rapidly growing research field of Majorana fermions in topological superconductors. We first discuss in some details the simplest "toy model" in which Majoranas appear,…
Semiconducting nanowires in proximity to superconductors are promising experimental systems for Majorana fermions which may ultimately be used as building blocks for topological quantum computers. A serious challenge in the experimental…
The 1937 theoretical discovery of Majorana fermions--whose defining property is that they are their own anti-particles--has since impacted diverse problems ranging from neutrino physics and dark matter searches to the fractional quantum…
Majorana fermions have recently garnered a great attention outside the field of particle physics, in condensed matter physics. In contrast to their particle physics counterparts, Majorana fermions are zero energy, chargeless, spinless,…
After a recent series of rapid and exciting developments, the long search for the Majorana fermion - the elusive quantum entity at the border between particles and antiparticles - has produced the first positive experimental results, but is…
There exists a variety of proposals to transform a conventional s-wave superconductor into a topological superconductor, supporting Majorana fermion mid-gap states. A necessary ingredient of these proposals is strong spin-orbit coupling.…
We present a pedagogical review of topological superconductivity and its consequences in spin-orbit coupled semiconductor/superconductor heterostructures. We start by reviewing the historical origins of the notions of Dirac and Majorana…
Realizations of Majorana fermions in solid state materials have attracted great interests recently in connection to topological order and quantum information processing. We propose a novel way to create Majorana fermions in superconductors.…
Majorana fermions are predicted to localize at the edge of a topological superconductor, a state of matter that can form when a ferromagnetic system is placed in proximity to a conventional superconductor with strong spin-orbit interaction.…
In this tutorial paper, we provide an introduction to the briskly expanding research field of Majorana fermions in topological superconductors. We discuss several aspects of topological superconductivity and the advantages it brings to…
The experimental realization of Majorana fermions presents an important problem due to their non-Abelian nature and potential exploitation for topological quantum computation. Very recently Sau et al. [arXiv:0907.2239] demonstrated that a…
Majorana fermions are the only fermionic particles that are expected to be their own antiparticles. While elementary particles of the Majorana type were not identified yet, quasi-particles with Majorana like properties, born from…
This review elaborates pedagogically on the fundamental concept, basic theory, expected properties, and materials realizations of topological superconductors. The relation between topological superconductivity and Majorana fermions are…
A topological insulator nanowire, proximity-coupled to an ordinary bulk s-wave superconductor and subject to a longitudinal applied magnetic field, is shown to realize a one-dimensional topological superconductor with unpaired Majorana…
Recently, the search for Majorana fermions (MFs) has become one of the most important and exciting issues in condensed matter physics since such an exotic quasiparticle is expected to potentially give rise to unprecedented quantum phenomena…
Despite extensive experimental efforts over the past two decades, the quest for Majorana fermions in superconductors remains inconclusive. We propose an experimental method that can conclusively confirm, or rule out, the existence of these…
Ettore Majorana, in his short life, unintendedly has uncovered the most profound problem in quantum computation by his discovery of Majorana fermion, a particle which is its own anti-particle. Owing to its non-Abelian exchange statistics,…