Optimizing the topological properties of stacking semiconductor-ferromagnet-superconductor heterostructures

Abstract

We study the electronic properties of a planar semiconductor-superconductor heterostructure, in which a thin ferromagnetic insulator layer lies in between and acts as a spin filtering barrier. We find that in such a system one can simultaneously enhance the strengths of all the three important induced physical quantities, i.e., Rashba spin-orbit coupling, exchange coupling, and superconducting pairing potential, for the hybrid mode by external gating. Our results show specific advantage of this stacked device geometry compared to conventional devices. We further discuss how to optimize geometrical parameters for the heterostructure and complement our numerical simulations with analytic calculations.

8 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (9)

• Non-Abelian Anyons and Topological Quantum Computation
• Majorana Fermions and a Topological Phase Transition in Semiconductor-Superconductor Heterostructures
• Colloquium: Majorana Fermions in nuclear, particle and solid-state physics
• Introduction to topological superconductivity and Majorana fermions
• Non-Abelian quantum order in spin-orbit-coupled semiconductors: The search for topological Majorana particles in solid state systems
• Topological superconductivity in semiconductor-superconductor-magnetic insulator heterostructures
• Electronic properties of InAs/EuS/Al hybrid nanowires
• Topological superconductivity in nanowires proximate to a diffusive superconductor-magnetic insulator bilayer
• Topological superconductivity in tripartite superconductor-ferromagnet-semiconductor nanowires

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Supercurrent reversal in ferromagnetic hybrid nanowire Josephson junctions
• Semiconductor-ferromagnet-superconductor planar heterostructures for 1D topological superconductivity
• Subgap states in semiconductor-superconductor devices for quantum technologies: Andreev qubits and minimal Majorana chains
• Percolative supercurrent in superconductor-ferromagnetic insulator bilayers