Chen Jun, Yu Peng, Stenger John, Hocevar Moïra, Car Diana, Plissard Sébastien R, Bakkers Erik P A M, Stanescu Tudor D, Frolov Sergey M
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA.
Department of Physics and Astronomy, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506, USA.
Sci Adv. 2017 Sep 8;3(9):e1701476. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.1701476. eCollection 2017 Sep.
Topological superconductivity is an exotic state of matter characterized by spinless p-wave Cooper pairing of electrons and by Majorana zero modes at the edges. The first signature of topological superconductivity is a robust zero-bias peak in tunneling conductance. We perform tunneling experiments on semiconductor nanowires (InSb) coupled to superconductors (NbTiN) and establish the zero-bias peak phase in the space of gate voltage and external magnetic field. Our findings are consistent with calculations for a finite-length topological nanowire and provide means for Majorana manipulation as required for braiding and topological quantum bits.
拓扑超导是一种奇异的物质状态,其特征是电子的无自旋p波库珀对以及边缘处的马约拉纳零模。拓扑超导的第一个特征是隧道电导中出现稳健的零偏置峰。我们对耦合到超导体(NbTiN)的半导体纳米线(InSb)进行了隧道实验,并在栅极电压和外部磁场的空间中确定了零偏置峰相。我们的发现与有限长度拓扑纳米线的计算结果一致,并为编织和拓扑量子比特所需的马约拉纳操控提供了手段。