Electron temperature and tunnel coupling dependence of zero-bias and almost-zero-bias conductance peaks in Majorana nanowires

Abstract

A one-dimensional semiconductor nanowire proximitized by a nearby superconductor may become a topological superconductor hosting localized Majorana zero modes at the two wire ends in the presence of spin-orbit coupling and Zeeman spin splitting (arising from an external magnetic field). The hallmark of the presence of such Majorana zero modes is the appearance of a zero-temperature quantized zero-bias conductance peak in the tunneling spectroscopy of the Majorana nanowire. We theoretically study the temperature and the tunnel coupling dependence of the tunneling conductance in such nanowires to understand possible intrinsic deviations from the predicted conductance quantization. We find that the full temperature and the tunneling transmission dependence of the tunnel conductance does not obey any simple scaling relation, and estimating the zero-temperature conductance from finite-temperature and finite-tunnel-broadening tunneling data is difficult in general. A scaling relation, however, does hold at the extreme weak-tunneling low-temperature limit where the conductance depends only on the dimensionless ratio of the temperature and tunnel broadening. We also consider the tunneling contributions from nontopological Andreev bound states which may produce almost-zero-bias conductance peaks, which are not easy to distinguish from the Majorana-induced zero-bias peaks, finding that the nontopological almost-zero-modes associated with Andreev bound states manifest similar temperature and transmission dependence as the topological Majorana modes. We comment on the Zeeman splitting dependence of the zero-bias conductance peak for finite temperature and tunnel coupling.

21 pages, 30 figures. Published version

References in corpus (17)

• Non-Abelian Anyons and Topological Quantum Computation
• Signatures of Majorana fermions in hybrid superconductor-semiconductor nanowire devices
• Majorana Fermions and a Topological Phase Transition in Semiconductor-Superconductor Heterostructures
• Evidence of Majorana fermions in an Al - InAs nanowire topological superconductor
• Observation of Majorana Fermions in a Nb-InSb Nanowire-Nb Hybrid Quantum Device
• Majorana bound states in a coupled quantum-dot hybrid-nanowire system
• Colloquium: Majorana Fermions in nuclear, particle and solid-state physics
• Introduction to topological superconductivity and Majorana fermions
• Anomalous modulation of a zero bias peak in a hybrid nanowire-superconductor device
• Non-Abelian quantum order in spin-orbit-coupled semiconductors: The search for topological Majorana particles in solid state systems
• Scaling of Majorana Zero-Bias Conductance Peaks
• Zero-bias anomaly in a nanowire quantum dot coupled to superconductors
• A Majorana smoking gun for the superconductor-semiconductor hybrid topological system
• Splitting of Majorana modes due to intervortex tunneling in a p + ip superconductor
• Zero bias conductance peak in Majorana wires made of semiconductor-superconductor hybrid structures
• Role of dissipation in realistic Majorana nanowires
• Phenomenology of soft gap, zero bias peak, and zero mode splitting in ideal Majorana nanowires

Cited by in corpus (25)

• Majorana nanowires for topological quantum computation
• On controlling the bound states in quantum-dot hybrid-nanowire
• Quantized conductance of Majorana zero mode in the vortex of the topological superconductor (Li0.84Fe0.16)OHFeSe
• Evidence for Helical Hinge Zero Modes in an Fe-Based Superconductor
• Presence versus absence of end-to-end nonlocal conductance correlations in Majorana nanowires: Majorana bound states versus Andreev bound states
• Dephasing and leakage dynamics of noisy Majorana-based qubits: Topological versus Andreev
• Majorana-like Coulomb spectroscopy in the absence of zero bias peaks
• Majorana/Andreev crossover and the fate of the topological phase transition in inhomogeneous nanowires
• Majorana Bound States in Double Nanowires with Reduced Zeeman Thresholds due to Supercurrents
• Effects of the electrostatic environment on superlattice Majorana nanowires
• Progress in superconductor-semiconductor topological Josephson junctions
• Emergent vortex Majorana zero mode in iron-based superconductors
• Quality factor for zero-bias conductance peaks in Majorana nanowire
• Observation of robust zero-energy state and enhanced superconducting gap in a tri-layer heterostructure of MnTe/Bi2Te3/Fe(Te, Se)
• Effect of topological length on Bound states signatures in a Topological nanowire
• Random matrix theory for the robustness, quantization, and end-to-end correlation of zero-bias conductance peaks in a class D ensemble
• Majorana bound states in topological insulators with hidden Dirac points
• Germanium-based hybrid semiconductor-superconductor topological quantum computing platforms: Disorder effects
• Searching for Majorana quasiparticles at vortex cores in iron-based superconductors
• Dynamical approach to improving Majorana qubits and distinguishing them from trivial bound states
• Vision transformer based Deep Learning of Topological indicators in Majorana Nanowires
• Transient effects in quantum dots contacted via topological superconductor
• Double Fu-teleportation and anomalous Coulomb blockade in a Majorana-hosted superconducting island
• Probing the dichotomy between Yu-Shiba-Rusinov and Majorana bound states via conductance, quantum noise and ${\Delta }_T$ noise
• Quantifying the non-Abelian property of Andreev bound states in inhomogeneous Majorana nanowires