Influence of disorder on antidot vortex Majorana states in 3D topological insulators

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Rechciński, Rafał, Khindanov, Aleksei, Pikulin, Dmitry I., Liao, Jian, Rokhinson, Leonid P., Chen, Yong P., Lutchyn, Roman M., Väyrynen, Jukka I.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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author Rechciński, Rafał
Khindanov, Aleksei
Pikulin, Dmitry I.
Liao, Jian
Rokhinson, Leonid P.
Chen, Yong P.
Lutchyn, Roman M.
Väyrynen, Jukka I.
author_facet Rechciński, Rafał
Khindanov, Aleksei
Pikulin, Dmitry I.
Liao, Jian
Rokhinson, Leonid P.
Chen, Yong P.
Lutchyn, Roman M.
Väyrynen, Jukka I.
contents Topological insulator/superconductor two-dimensional heterostructures are promising candidates for realizing topological superconductivity and Majorana modes. In these systems, a vortex pinned by a pre-fabricated antidot in the superconductor can host Majorana zero-energy modes (MZMs), which are exotic quasiparticles that may enable quantum information processing. However, a major challenge is to design devices that can manipulate the information encoded in these MZMs. One of the key factors is to create small and clean antidots, so the MZMs, localized in the vortex core, have a large gap to other excitations. If the antidot is too large or too disordered, the level spacing for the subgap vortex states may become smaller than temperature. In this paper, we numerically investigate the effects of disorder, chemical potential, and antidot size on the subgap vortex spectrum, using a two-dimensional effective model of the topological insulator surface. Our model allows us to simulate large system sizes with vortices up to 1.8 $μ$m in diameter (with a 6 nm lattice constant). We also compare our disorder model with the transport data from existing experiments. We find that the spectral gap can exhibit a non-monotonic behavior as a function of disorder strength, and that it can be tuned by applying a gate voltage.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2310_03810
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Influence of disorder on antidot vortex Majorana states in 3D topological insulators
Rechciński, Rafał
Khindanov, Aleksei
Pikulin, Dmitry I.
Liao, Jian
Rokhinson, Leonid P.
Chen, Yong P.
Lutchyn, Roman M.
Väyrynen, Jukka I.
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
Superconductivity
Topological insulator/superconductor two-dimensional heterostructures are promising candidates for realizing topological superconductivity and Majorana modes. In these systems, a vortex pinned by a pre-fabricated antidot in the superconductor can host Majorana zero-energy modes (MZMs), which are exotic quasiparticles that may enable quantum information processing. However, a major challenge is to design devices that can manipulate the information encoded in these MZMs. One of the key factors is to create small and clean antidots, so the MZMs, localized in the vortex core, have a large gap to other excitations. If the antidot is too large or too disordered, the level spacing for the subgap vortex states may become smaller than temperature. In this paper, we numerically investigate the effects of disorder, chemical potential, and antidot size on the subgap vortex spectrum, using a two-dimensional effective model of the topological insulator surface. Our model allows us to simulate large system sizes with vortices up to 1.8 $μ$m in diameter (with a 6 nm lattice constant). We also compare our disorder model with the transport data from existing experiments. We find that the spectral gap can exhibit a non-monotonic behavior as a function of disorder strength, and that it can be tuned by applying a gate voltage.
title Influence of disorder on antidot vortex Majorana states in 3D topological insulators
topic Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
Superconductivity
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.03810