Majorana fermions in semiconducting nanowire and Fulde–Ferrell superconductor hybrid structures
Jia Liu1,2(), Chun Fai Chan2, Ming Gong2,3()
1. Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Quantum Engineering and Quantum Materials, and School of Physics and Telecommunication Engineering, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510006, China 2. Department of Physics and Center of Coherence, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N. T., Hong Kong, China 3. Key Laboratory of Quantum Information, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China
The novel idea that spin-orbit coupling (SOC) and an s-wave pairing system can lead to induced pwave pairing with a strong magnetic limit, has stimulated widespread interest in searching for Majorana fermions (MFs) in semiconductor-superconductor hybrid structures. However, despite major advances in the semiconductor nanotechnology, this system has several inherent limitations that prohibit the realization and identification of MFs. We overcome these limitations by replacing the s-wave superconductor with the type-II Fulde–Ferrell (FF) superconductor, in which the center-of-mass momentum of the Cooper pair renormalizes the in-plane Zeeman field and chemical potential. As a result, MFs can be realized in semiconductor nanowires with small values of the Landé g-factor and high carrier densities. The SOC strength directly influences the topological boundary; thus, the topological phase transition and associated MFs can be engineered by an external electric field. Theoretically, almost all semiconductor nanowires can be used to realize MFs by using the FF superconductor. However, we find that InP nanowire is more suitable for the realization of MFs compared to InAs and InSb nanowires. Thus, this new scheme can take full advantage of the semiconductor nanotechnology for the realization of MFs in semiconductor-superconductor hybrid structures.
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