Probing chiral edge states in topological superconductors through spin-polarized local density of state measurements

Abstract

We show that spin-polarized local density of states (LDOS) measurements can uniquely determine the chiral nature of topologically protected edge states surrounding a ferromagnetic island embedded in a conventional superconductor with spin-orbit coupling. The spin-polarized LDOS show a strong spin-polarization directly tied to the normal direction of the edge, with opposite polarizations on opposite sides of the island, and with a distinct oscillatory pattern in energy.

5 pages, 4 figures, publicly released code

References in corpus (15)

• Non-Abelian Anyons and Topological Quantum Computation
• Superconducting proximity effect and Majorana fermions at the surface of a topological insulator
• 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 Ferromagnetic Atomic Chains on a Superconductor
• Topological superconductors: a review
• The Kernel Polynomial Method
• Non-Abelian Topological Order in S-Wave Superfluids of Ultracold Fermionic Atoms
• Non-Abelian Topological Orders and Majorana Fermions in Spin-Singlet Superconductors
• Topological spin-current in non-centrosymmetric superconductors
• Two-dimensional topological superconductivity in Pb/Co/Si(111)
• Strong localization of Majorana end states in chains of magnetic adatoms
• Chebyshev-BdG: an efficient numerical approach to inhomogeneous superconductivity
• Quantized charge transport in chiral Majorana edge modes

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Two-dimensional topological superconductivity in Pb/Co/Si(111)
• Atomic-Scale Interface Engineering of Majorana Edge Modes in a 2D Magnet-Superconductor Hybrid System
• Majorana bound state localization and energy oscillations for magnetic impurity chains on conventional superconductors
• Identification of topological superconductivity in magnetic impurity systems using bulk spin-polarization
• Yu-Shiba-Rusinov bound states versus topological edge states in Pb/Si(111)
• Volkov-Pankratov states in topological superconductors
• Majorana bound states in magnetic impurity chains: effects of $d$-wave pairing
• Observation of in-gap states in a two-dimensional CrI2/NbSe2 heterostructure
• Probing the chirality of 1D Majorana edge states around a 2D nanoflake in a superconductor
• Bound states induced by the ferromagnetic dimer in a triangular lattice