Detecting perfect transmission in Josephson junctions on the surface of three dimensional topological insulators

Roni Ilan, Jens H. Bardarson, H. S. Sim, Joel E. Moore

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

29 Scopus citations

Abstract

We consider Josephson junctions on surfaces of three dimensional topological insulator nanowires. We find that in the presence of a parallel magnetic field, short junctions on nanowires show signatures of a perfectly transmitted mode capable of supporting Majorana fermions. Such signatures appear in the currentphase relation in the presence or absence of the fermion parity anomaly, and are most striking when considering the critical current as a function of flux φ, which exhibits a peak at φ =h e 2 . The peak sharpens in the presence of disorder at low but finite chemical potentials, and can be easily disentangled from weakanti- localization effects. The peak also survives at small but finite temperatures, and represents a realistic and robust hallmark for perfect transmission and the emergence of Majorana physics inside the wire.

Original languageEnglish
Article number053007
JournalNew Journal of Physics
Volume16
DOIs
StatePublished - May 2014
Externally publishedYes

Funding

FundersFunder number
Air Force Office of Scientific Research
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

    Keywords

    • Josephson junctions
    • Majorana fermions
    • perfect transmission
    • topological insulators
    • topological superconductivity
    • transport in nanowires

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