Topological Superconductivity with Spin Valves*

Recent advances in fabricating two-dimensional (2D) epitaxial superconductor/semiconductor heterostructures [1] support the feasibility of implementing a new platform for topological superconductivity employing spin valves, a key building block in magnetic computer hard drives and magnetic random access memory [2].By controlling magnetization states in an array of spin valves, the resulting tunable magnetic textures can modify a proximity-induced superconductivity in the nearby 2D electron gas to provide a confinement and synthetic spin-orbit coupling, supporting the formation of Majorana bound states (MBS) [3,4]. From a detailed analysis of these magnetic textures we discuss their optimization for the control of MBS and demonstration of the non-Abelian statistics. In fact, magnetic textures can already provide topologically-nontrivial effects in the normal state.
[1] J. Shabani et al., Phys. Rev. B 93, 155402 (2016)
[2] I. Zutic, J. Fabian, and S. Das Sarma, Rev. Mod. Phys. 76, 323 (2004)
[3] A. Matos-Abiague et al., Solid State Commun. 262, 1 (2017)
[4] G. L. Fatin et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 117, 077002 (2016).