Topological surface superconductivity in FeSe0.45Te0.55
Abstract
The engineering of Majorana zero modes in topological superconductors, a paradigm for the realization of topological quantum computing and topology-based devices, has been hampered by the absence of materials with sufficiently large superconducting gaps. Recent experiments, however, have provided enthralling evidence for the existence of topological surface superconductivity in the iron-based superconductor FeSe0.45Te0.55 possessing a full s>±-wave gap of a few meV. Here, we propose a mechanism for the emergence of topological superconductivity on the surface of FeSe0.45Te0.55 by demonstrating that the interplay between the s±-wave symmetry of the superconducting gap, surface magnetism, and a Rashba spin–orbit interaction gives rise to robust topological superconducting phases. Moreover, the proposed mechanism explains a series of experimentally observed hallmarks of topological superconductivity, such as the emergence of Majorana zero modes in the center of vortex cores and at the end of line defects, as well as of chiral Majorana edge modes along domain walls. We also propose that the spatial distribution of supercurrents near a domain wall is a characteristic signature measurable via a scanning superconducting quantum interference device that can distinguish between chiral Majorana edge modes and trivial in-gap states.
- Authors:
-
[1];
[1]
- University of Illinois, Chicago, IL (United States)
- University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC (Australia)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States); Univ. of California, Oakland, CA (United States); University of Illinois, Chicago, IL (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); Australian Research Council
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1978736
- Grant/Contract Number:
- FG02-05ER46225; AC02-05CH11231; FT180100211; DP200101118
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Communications Physics
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 5; Journal Issue: 1; Journal ID: ISSN 2399-3650
- Publisher:
- Springer Nature
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS; superconducting properties; superconducting materials; topological matter
Citation Formats
Mascot, Eric, Cocklin, Sagen, Graham, Martin, Mashkoori, Mahdi, Rachel, Stephan, and Morr, Dirk K. Topological surface superconductivity in FeSe0.45Te0.55. United States: N. p., 2022.
Web. doi:10.1038/s42005-022-00943-x.
Mascot, Eric, Cocklin, Sagen, Graham, Martin, Mashkoori, Mahdi, Rachel, Stephan, & Morr, Dirk K. Topological surface superconductivity in FeSe0.45Te0.55. United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42005-022-00943-x
Mascot, Eric, Cocklin, Sagen, Graham, Martin, Mashkoori, Mahdi, Rachel, Stephan, and Morr, Dirk K. Fri .
"Topological surface superconductivity in FeSe0.45Te0.55". United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42005-022-00943-x. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1978736.
@article{osti_1978736,
title = {Topological surface superconductivity in FeSe0.45Te0.55},
author = {Mascot, Eric and Cocklin, Sagen and Graham, Martin and Mashkoori, Mahdi and Rachel, Stephan and Morr, Dirk K.},
abstractNote = {The engineering of Majorana zero modes in topological superconductors, a paradigm for the realization of topological quantum computing and topology-based devices, has been hampered by the absence of materials with sufficiently large superconducting gaps. Recent experiments, however, have provided enthralling evidence for the existence of topological surface superconductivity in the iron-based superconductor FeSe0.45Te0.55 possessing a full s>±-wave gap of a few meV. Here, we propose a mechanism for the emergence of topological superconductivity on the surface of FeSe0.45Te0.55 by demonstrating that the interplay between the s±-wave symmetry of the superconducting gap, surface magnetism, and a Rashba spin–orbit interaction gives rise to robust topological superconducting phases. Moreover, the proposed mechanism explains a series of experimentally observed hallmarks of topological superconductivity, such as the emergence of Majorana zero modes in the center of vortex cores and at the end of line defects, as well as of chiral Majorana edge modes along domain walls. We also propose that the spatial distribution of supercurrents near a domain wall is a characteristic signature measurable via a scanning superconducting quantum interference device that can distinguish between chiral Majorana edge modes and trivial in-gap states.},
doi = {10.1038/s42005-022-00943-x},
journal = {Communications Physics},
number = 1,
volume = 5,
place = {United States},
year = {Fri Jul 22 00:00:00 EDT 2022},
month = {Fri Jul 22 00:00:00 EDT 2022}
}
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
Other availability
Search WorldCat to find libraries that may hold this journal
Save to My Library
You must Sign In or Create an Account in order to save documents to your library.
Works referenced in this record:
Topological Superconductivity and High Chern Numbers in 2D Ferromagnetic Shiba Lattices
journal, June 2015
- Röntynen, Joel; Ojanen, Teemu
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 114, Issue 23
Superfluid from -Wave Interactions of Fermionic Cold Atoms
journal, October 2008
- Zhang, Chuanwei; Tewari, Sumanta; Lutchyn, Roman M.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 101, Issue 16
Strong Electron Correlations in the Normal State of the Iron-Based Superconductor Observed by Angle-Resolved Photoemission Spectroscopy
journal, March 2010
- Tamai, A.; Ganin, A. Y.; Rozbicki, E.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 104, Issue 9
Atomic line defects and zero-energy end states in monolayer Fe(Te,Se) high-temperature superconductors
journal, March 2020
- Chen, Cheng; Jiang, Kun; Zhang, Yi
- Nature Physics, Vol. 16, Issue 5
Pairing symmetry and topological surface state in iron-chalcogenide superconductors
journal, April 2020
- Hu, Lun-Hui; Johnson, P. D.; Wu, Congjun
- Physical Review Research, Vol. 2, Issue 2
Strong Correlation Between Superconductivity and Ferromagnetism in an Fe-Chalcogenide Superconductor
journal, August 2021
- McLaughlin, Nathan J.; Wang, Hailong; Huang, Mengqi
- Nano Letters, Vol. 21, Issue 17
Topological nature of the superconductor
journal, September 2015
- Wang, Zhijun; Zhang, P.; Xu, Gang
- Physical Review B, Vol. 92, Issue 11
Topological Superconductivity on the Surface of Fe-Based Superconductors
journal, July 2016
- Xu, Gang; Lian, Biao; Tang, Peizhe
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 117, Issue 4
Quantized charge transport in chiral Majorana edge modes
journal, November 2017
- Rachel, Stephan; Mascot, Eric; Cocklin, Sagen
- Physical Review B, Vol. 96, Issue 20
Direct observation of spin–orbit coupling in iron-based superconductors
journal, December 2015
- Borisenko, S. V.; Evtushinsky, D. V.; Liu, Z. -H.
- Nature Physics, Vol. 12, Issue 4
Nearly quantized conductance plateau of vortex zero mode in an iron-based superconductor
journal, December 2019
- Zhu, Shiyu; Kong, Lingyuan; Cao, Lu
- Science
Topological orders competing for the Dirac surface state in FeSeTe surfaces
journal, January 2021
- Wu, Xianxin; Chung, Suk Bum; Liu, Chaoxing
- Physical Review Research, Vol. 3, Issue 1
Near-degeneracy of several pairing channels in multiorbital models for the Fe pnictides
journal, February 2009
- Graser, S.; Maier, T. A.; Hirschfeld, P. J.
- New Journal of Physics, Vol. 11, Issue 2
Emergence of the nematic electronic state in FeSe
journal, April 2015
- Watson, M. D.; Kim, T. K.; Haghighirad, A. A.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 91, Issue 15
End States and Subgap Structure in Proximity-Coupled Chains of Magnetic Adatoms
journal, November 2015
- Ruby, Michael; Pientka, Falko; Peng, Yang
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 115, Issue 19
Multiple topological states in iron-based superconductors
journal, September 2018
- Zhang, Peng; Wang, Zhijun; Wu, Xianxin
- Nature Physics, Vol. 15, Issue 1
Spin-Polarized Majorana Bound States inside a Vortex Core in Topological Superconductors
journal, June 2014
- Nagai, Yuki; Nakamura, Hiroki; Machida, Masahiko
- Journal of the Physical Society of Japan, Vol. 83, Issue 6
Generic New Platform for Topological Quantum Computation Using Semiconductor Heterostructures
journal, January 2010
- Sau, Jay D.; Lutchyn, Roman M.; Tewari, Sumanta
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 104, Issue 4
Probing atomic structure and Majorana wavefunctions in mono-atomic Fe chains on superconducting Pb surface
journal, November 2016
- Pawlak, Rémy; Kisiel, Marcin; Klinovaja, Jelena
- npj Quantum Information, Vol. 2, Issue 1
Bound Fermion states on a vortex line in a type II superconductor
journal, May 1964
- Caroli, C.; De Gennes, P. G.; Matricon, J.
- Physics Letters, Vol. 9, Issue 4
Topological Insulators and Topological Superconductors
book, January 2013
- Bernevig, B. Andrei
- Princeton University Press
Periodic table for topological insulators and superconductors
conference, January 2009
- Kitaev, Alexei; Lebedev, Vladimir; Feigel’man, Mikhail
- ADVANCES IN THEORETICAL PHYSICS: Landau Memorial Conference, AIP Conference Proceedings
A strongly inhomogeneous superfluid in an iron-based superconductor
journal, July 2019
- Cho, D.; Bastiaans, K. M.; Chatzopoulos, D.
- Nature, Vol. 571, Issue 7766
Topological characters in thin films
journal, March 2016
- Wu, Xianxin; Qin, Shengshan; Liang, Yi
- Physical Review B, Vol. 93, Issue 11
Theory of spin-selective Andreev reflection in the vortex core of a topological superconductor
journal, December 2016
- Hu, Lun-Hui; Li, Chuang; Xu, Dong-Hui
- Physical Review B, Vol. 94, Issue 22
Isolated pairs of Majorana zero modes in a disordered superconducting lead monolayer
journal, June 2019
- Ménard, Gerbold C.; Mesaros, Andrej; Brun, Christophe
- Nature Communications, Vol. 10, Issue 1
Signature of a pair of Majorana zero modes in superconducting gold surface states
journal, April 2020
- Manna, Sujit; Wei, Peng; Xie, Yingming
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 117, Issue 16
On the Remarkable Superconductivity of FeSe and Its Close Cousins
journal, August 2020
- Kreisel, Andreas; Hirschfeld, Peter J.; Andersen, Brian M.
- Symmetry, Vol. 12, Issue 9
Time-reversal symmetry breaking in the Fe-chalcogenide superconductors
journal, January 2021
- Zaki, Nader; Gu, Genda; Tsvelik, Alexei
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 118, Issue 3
Influence of Spin-Orbit Coupling in Iron-Based Superconductors
journal, August 2018
- Day, R. P.; Levy, G.; Michiardi, M.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 121, Issue 7
Zero-energy vortex bound state in the superconducting topological surface state of Fe(Se,Te)
journal, June 2019
- Machida, T.; Sun, Y.; Pyon, S.
- Nature Materials, Vol. 18, Issue 8
Topological insulators and superconductors: tenfold way and dimensional hierarchy
journal, June 2010
- Ryu, Shinsei; Schnyder, Andreas P.; Furusaki, Akira
- New Journal of Physics, Vol. 12, Issue 6
Non-Abelian Topological Order in -Wave Superfluids of Ultracold Fermionic Atoms
journal, July 2009
- Sato, Masatoshi; Takahashi, Yoshiro; Fujimoto, Satoshi
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 103, Issue 2
Toward tailoring Majorana bound states in artificially constructed magnetic atom chains on elemental superconductors
journal, May 2018
- Kim, Howon; Palacio-Morales, Alexandra; Posske, Thore
- Science Advances, Vol. 4, Issue 5
Two-dimensional chiral topological superconductivity in Shiba lattices
journal, July 2016
- Li, Jian; Neupert, Titus; Wang, Zhijun
- Nature Communications, Vol. 7, Issue 1
Images of Edge Current in Quantum Wells
journal, July 2014
- Spanton, Eric M.; Nowack, Katja C.; Du, Lingjie
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 113, Issue 2
Half-integer level shift of vortex bound states in an iron-based superconductor
journal, August 2019
- Kong, Lingyuan; Zhu, Shiyu; Papaj, Michał
- Nature Physics, Vol. 15, Issue 11
Tight-binding models for the iron-based superconductors
journal, September 2009
- Eschrig, Helmut; Koepernik, Klaus
- Physical Review B, Vol. 80, Issue 10
High-temperature Majorana fermions in magnet-superconductor hybrid systems
journal, May 2020
- Crawford, Daniel; Mascot, Eric; Morr, Dirk K.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 101, Issue 17
Homotopy and Quantization in Condensed Matter Physics
journal, July 1983
- Avron, J. E.; Seiler, R.; Simon, B.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 51, Issue 1
Electronic properties of the bulk and surface states of Fe1+yTe1−xSex
journal, April 2021
- Li, Yangmu; Zaki, Nader; Garlea, Vasile O.
- Nature Materials, Vol. 20, Issue 9
Investigation of the Spin-Glass Regime between the Antiferromagnetic and Superconducting Phases in Fe 1+ y Se x Te 1- x
journal, November 2010
- Katayama, Naoyuki; Ji, Sungdae; Louca, Despina
- Journal of the Physical Society of Japan, Vol. 79, Issue 11
Evidence for dispersing 1D Majorana channels in an iron-based superconductor
journal, January 2020
- Wang, Zhenyu; Rodriguez, Jorge Olivares; Jiao, Lin
- Science, Vol. 367, Issue 6473
Signatures of Majorana Fermions in Hybrid Superconductor-Semiconductor Nanowire Devices
journal, April 2012
- Mourik, V.; Zuo, K.; Frolov, S. M.
- Science, Vol. 336, Issue 6084
Two-dimensional topological superconductivity in Pb/Co/Si(111)
journal, December 2017
- Ménard, Gerbold C.; Guissart, Sébastien; Brun, Christophe
- Nature Communications, Vol. 8, Issue 1
Orbital superconductivity, defects, and pinned nematic fluctuations in the doped iron chalcogenide
journal, August 2017
- Sarkar, Saheli; Van Dyke, John; Sprau, Peter O.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 96, Issue 6
Majorana Bound States without Vortices in Topological Superconductors with Electrostatic Defects
journal, July 2010
- Wimmer, M.; Akhmerov, A. R.; Medvedyeva, M. V.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 105, Issue 4
Surface orbital order and chemical potential inhomogeneity of the iron-based superconductor investigated with special STM tips
journal, August 2021
- Wang, Dongfei; Zhong, Ruidan; Gu, Genda
- Physical Review Research, Vol. 3, Issue 3
Non-Abelian anyons and topological quantum computation
journal, September 2008
- Nayak, Chetan; Simon, Steven H.; Stern, Ady
- Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol. 80, Issue 3
Observation of topological superconductivity on the surface of an iron-based superconductor
journal, March 2018
- Zhang, Peng; Yaji, Koichiro; Hashimoto, Takahiro
- Science, Vol. 360, Issue 6385
Superconducting Proximity Effect and Majorana Fermions at the Surface of a Topological Insulator
journal, March 2008
- Fu, Liang; Kane, C. L.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 100, Issue 9
Atomic-scale interface engineering of Majorana edge modes in a 2D magnet-superconductor hybrid system
journal, July 2019
- Palacio-Morales, Alexandra; Mascot, Eric; Cocklin, Sagen
- Science Advances, Vol. 5, Issue 7
Two-dimensional -wave superconducting states with magnetic moments on a conventional -wave superconductor
journal, November 2013
- Nakosai, Sho; Tanaka, Yukio; Nagaosa, Naoto
- Physical Review B, Vol. 88, Issue 18
Observation of Majorana fermions in ferromagnetic atomic chains on a superconductor
journal, October 2014
- Nadj-Perge, S.; Drozdov, I. K.; Li, J.
- Science, Vol. 346, Issue 6209
Evidence for unidirectional nematic bond ordering in FeSe
journal, November 2016
- Watson, M. D.; Kim, T. K.; Rhodes, L. C.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 94, Issue 20
Zero-bias peaks and splitting in an Al–InAs nanowire topological superconductor as a signature of Majorana fermions
journal, November 2012
- Das, Anindya; Ronen, Yuval; Most, Yonatan
- Nature Physics, Vol. 8, Issue 12
Electronic vortex structure of Fe-based superconductors: Application to LiFeAs
journal, June 2016
- Uranga, B. Mencia; Gastiasoro, Maria N.; Andersen, Brian M.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 93, Issue 22
Evidence for Majorana bound states in an iron-based superconductor
journal, August 2018
- Wang, Dongfei; Kong, Lingyuan; Fan, Peng
- Science, Vol. 362, Issue 6412
Manifestation of chirality in the vortex lattice in a two-dimensional topological superconductor
journal, August 2016
- Smith, Evan D. B.; Tanaka, K.; Nagai, Yuki
- Physical Review B, Vol. 94, Issue 6