APS March Meeting 2017
Volume 62, Number 4
Monday–Friday, March 13–17, 2017;
New Orleans, Louisiana
Session X45: Two-Dimensional Topological Superconductors: II
8:00 AM–10:48 AM,
Friday, March 17, 2017
Room: 392
Sponsoring
Unit:
DMP
Abstract ID: BAPS.2017.MAR.X45.1
Abstract: X45.00001 : Manipulating Majorana Bound States with Tunable Magnetic Textures*
8:00 AM–8:36 AM
Preview Abstract
Abstract
Author:
Alex Matos Abiague
(University at Buffalo)
In condensed-matter systems Majorana bound states (MBSs) are emergent quasiparticles obeying non-Abelian statistics. While realizing the non-Abelian braiding statistics would provide both an ultimate proof for MBSs existence and a key element for fault-tolerant topological quantum computing, even theoretical schemes imply a significant complexity to implement such braiding. The first experimental evidences of MBSs formation were measured in one-dimensional (1D) systems [1]. However, since braiding statistics are ill-defined in 1D, complex wire networks must be used for directly probing the non-Abelian character of the MBSs [2]. In this talk I will discuss the possibility of creating and manipulating MBSs in two-dimensional (2D) systems by using tunable magnetic textures generated by an array of magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) located on a 2D superconductor-semiconductor heterostructure [3]. Magnetic textures can provide not only effective spin-orbit and Zeeman fields [4] -two important ingredients for the creation of MBSs- but also spatial confinement [5]. The underlying magnetic texture produced by the MTJs array leads to the formation of effective topological wires supporting MBSs formation. The effective wires can be re-shaped and re-oriented by properly changing the magnetic texture, allowing for the transportation of the MBSs in 2D [5]. I will then show how the proposed platform can be used to measure the non-Abelian statistics of MBSs through braiding and discuss the main challenges regarding materials, scalability, and detection. The effects of the coexistence of native and magnetically-induced spin-orbit fields on the MBSs as well as the possibility of using other magnetic textures will also be addressed.\newline
[1] V. Mourik et al., Science 336, 1003 (2012); S. Nadj-Perge et al., Science 346, 602 (2014).
[2] J. Alicea et al., Nat. Phys. 7, 412 (2011); D. Aasen et al., Phys. Rev. X 6, 031016 (2016).
[3] J. Shabani et al., Phys. Rev. B 93, 155402 (2016).
[4] Kjaergaard et al., Phys. Rev. B 85, 020503 (2012); J. Klinovaja et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 186805 (2013); G. Yang et al., Phys. Rev. B 93, 224505 (2016).
[5] G. L. Fatin, A. Matos-Abiague, B. Scharf, and I. Zutic, Phys. Rev. Lett. 117, 077002 (2016).
*This work was done in collaboration with G. L. Fatin, B. Scharf, and I. Zutic and was supported by U.S. DOE, Office of Science BES, under Award No. DE-SC0004890 and U.S. ONR Grant No. N000141310754.
To cite this abstract, use the following reference: http://meetings.aps.org/link/BAPS.2017.MAR.X45.1