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Vortex bound states of charge and magnetic fluctuations induced topological superconductors in heterostructures

Hosseinabadi, H ; Sharif University of Technology | 2019

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  1. Type of Document: Article
  2. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.100.144507
  3. Publisher: American Physical Society , 2019
  4. Abstract:
  5. The helical electron states on the surface of topological insulators or elemental bismuth become unstable toward superconducting pairing formation when coupled to the charge or magnetic fluctuations. The latter gives rise to pairing instability in chiral channels dxy±idx2-y2, as has been observed recently in the epitaxial Bi/Ni bilayer system at relatively high temperature, while the former favors a pairing with zero total angular momentum. Motivated by this observation we study the vortex bound states in these superconducting states. We consider a minimal model describing the superconductivity in the presence of a vortex in the superconducting order parameter. We show that zero-energy states appear in the spectrum of the vortex core for all pairing symmetries. Our findings may facilitate the observation of Majorana modes bounded to the vortices in heterostructures with no need for a proximity-induced superconductivity and relatively large value of Δ/EF. © 2019 American Physical Society
  6. Keywords:
  7. Electron energy levels ; Magnetic fluctuation ; Pairing instability ; Pairing symmetries ; Proximity-induced superconductivity ; Superconducting order parameters ; Superconducting pairing ; Superconducting state ; Zero energy state ; Vortex flow
  8. Source: Physical Review B ; Volume 100, Issue 14 , 2019 ; 24699950 (ISSN)
  9. URL: https://journals.aps.org/prb/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevB.100.144507