Conductance spectroscopy on Majorana wires and the inverse proximity effect

Abstract

Recent experimental searches for signatures of Majorana-like excitations in proximitized semiconducting nanowires involve conductance spectroscopy, where the evidence sought after is a robust zero-bias peak (in longer wires) and its characteristic field-dependent splitting (in shorter wires). Although experimental results partially confirm the theoretical predictions, commonly observed discrepancies still include (i) a zero-bias peak that is significantly lower than the predicted value of $2e^2/h$ and (ii) the absence of the expected "Majorana oscillations" of the lowest-energy modes at higher magnetic fields. Here, we investigate how the inevitable presence of a normal drain lead connected to the hybrid wire can affect the conductance spectrum of the hybrid wire. We present numerical results using a one-band model for the proximitized nanowire, where the superconductor is considered to be in the diffusive regime, described by semi-classical Green functions. We show how the presence of the normal drain could (at least partially) account for the observed discrepancies, and we complement this with analytic results providing more insights in the underlying physics.

arXiv comment10 pages, 7 figures

References in corpus (33)

• Non-Abelian Anyons and Topological Quantum Computation
• Unpaired Majorana fermions in quantum wires
• Signatures of Majorana fermions in hybrid superconductor-semiconductor nanowire devices
• Majorana Fermions and a Topological Phase Transition in Semiconductor-Superconductor Heterostructures
• Helical liquids and Majorana bound states in quantum wires
• Evidence of Majorana fermions in an Al - InAs nanowire topological superconductor
• Non-abelian statistics of half-quantum vortices in p-wave superconductors
• Observation of Majorana Fermions in a Nb-InSb Nanowire-Nb Hybrid Quantum Device
• Exponential Protection of Zero Modes in Majorana Islands
• Majorana bound states in a coupled quantum-dot hybrid-nanowire system
• Superconductor-Nanowire Devices from Tunneling to the Multichannel Regime: Zero-Bias Oscillations and Magnetoconductance Crossover
• Spin-resolved Andreev levels and parity crossings in hybrid superconductor-semiconductor nanostructures
• Tunneling characteristic of a chain of Majorana bound states
• Quantum Effects in Coulomb Blockade
• Non-Abelian quantum order in spin-orbit-coupled semiconductors: The search for topological Majorana particles in solid state systems
• Epitaxy of Semiconductor-Superconductor nanowires
• Zero-bias peaks in spin-orbit coupled superconducting wires with and without Majorana end-states
• Fermion zero modes on vortices in chiral superconductors
• Majorana Fermions in Semiconductor Nanowires
• Near-zero-energy end states in topologically trivial spin-orbit coupled superconducting nanowires with a smooth confinement
• Transport spectroscopy of NS nanowire junctions with Majorana fermions
• Towards a realistic transport modeling in a superconducting nanowire with Majorana fermions
• Zero-bias anomaly in a nanowire quantum dot coupled to superconductors
• A Majorana smoking gun for the superconductor-semiconductor hybrid topological system
• Zero-voltage conductance peak from weak antilocalization in a Majorana nanowire
• Class D spectral peak in Majorana quantum wires
• Local Density of States in a Dirty Normal Metal connected to a Superconductor
• Role of dissipation in realistic Majorana nanowires
• How to infer non-Abelian statistics and topological invariants from tunneling conductance properties of realistic Majorana nanowires
• Zero-energy pinning from interactions in Majorana nanowires
• Conductance of a superconducting Coulomb blockaded Majorana nanowire
• Approaching a topological phase transition in Majorana nanowires
• Phase-tunable Majorana bound states in a topological N-SNS junction

Cited by in corpus (19)

• From Andreev to Majorana bound states in hybrid superconductor-semiconductor nanowires
• Decaying spectral oscillations in a Majorana wire with finite coherence length
• Synthetic spin orbit interaction for Majorana devices
• On controlling the bound states in quantum-dot hybrid-nanowire
• Spin-Orbit Protection of Induced Superconductivity in Majorana Nanowires
• Spin-dependent zero-bias peak in a hybrid nanowire-quantum dot system: Distinguishing isolated Majorana fermions from Andreev bound states
• The Majorana spin in magnetic atomic chain systems
• Majorana oscillations modulated by Fano interference and dregree of non-locality in a topological superconducting nanowire-quantum dot system
• Interaction-induced zero-energy pinning and quantum dot formation in Majorana nanowires
• Tuning of heat and charge transport by Majorana fermions
• Recent progress on Majorana in semiconductor-superconductor heterostructures--Engineering and detection
• Conductance feature smearing and anisotropic suppression of induced superconductivity in a Majorana nanowire
• Topological isoconductance signatures in Majorana nanowires
• Differential current noise as an identifier of Andreev bound states that induce nearly quantized conductance plateaus
• Manifestation of Majorana modes overlap in the Aharonov-Bohm effect
• Transport features of a topological superconducting nanowire with a quantum dot: conductance and noise
• Thermoelectric transport through a finite-$U$ quantum dot side-coupled to Majorana bound state
• Emergence of exceptional points and their spectroscopic signature in Dirac semimetal-dirty Superconductor heterojunction
• Josephson and persistent currents in a quantum ring between topological superconductors