Related papers: Majorana Fermions in Magnetic Chains
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…
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…
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.…
For the past decade, Majorana quasiparticles have become one of the hot topics in condensed matter research. Besides the fundamental interest in the realization of particles being their own antiparticles, going back to basic concepts of…
Majorana fermion (MF) excitations in solid state system have non-Abelian statistics which is essential for topological quantum computation. Previous proposals to realize MF, however, generally requires fine-tuning of parameters. Here we…
Topological superconductors are novel classes of quantum condensed phases, characterized by topologically nontrivial structures of Cooper pairing states. On the surfaces of samples and in vortex cores of topological superconductors,…
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.…
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.…
Majorana fermions are particles identical to their own antiparticles. They have been theoretically predicted to exist in topological superconductors. We report electrical measurements on InSb nanowires contacted with one normal (Au) and one…
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 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,…
We demonstrate that Majorana fermions exist in edges of systems and in a vortex core even for superconductors with nodal excitations such as the d-wave pairing state under a particular but realistic condition in the case with an…
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…
Majorana fermions, quantum particles with non-Abelian exchange statistics, are not only of fundamental importance, but also building blocks for fault-tolerant quantum computation. Although certain experimental breakthroughs for observing…
The search for a Majorana Fermion has been an area of intense interest in condensed matter research of late. This elusive particle, predicted to exist in 1937, has been sought after for both fundamental and practical reasons. On the…
Majorana fermions are spin-1/2 neutral particles that are their own antiparticles and were initially predicted by Ettore Majorana in particle physics but their observation still remains elusive. The concept of Majorana fermions has been…
We propose a new mechanism for topological superconductivity based on an antiferromagnetically ordered chain of magnetic atoms on the surface of a conventional superconductor. In a weak Zeeman field, a supercurrent in the substrate…
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…
We propose an easy-to-build easy-to-detect scheme for realizing Majorana fermions at the ends of a chain of magnetic atoms on the surface of a superconductor. Model calculations show that such chains can be easily tuned between trivial and…