Majorana zero modes in impurity-assisted vortex of LiFeAs superconductor
Name
s41467-021-24372-6.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
5.37 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
0309b9ef80bec69e736f8b12b0da3c97
Author(s)
Kong, Lingyuan
Cao, Lu
Zhu, Shiyu
Papaj, Michał
Dai, Guangyang
Li, Geng
Fan, Peng
Liu, Wenyao
Yang, Fazhi
Wang, Xiancheng
Date Issued
2021
Journal
Nature Communications
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Citation
Kong, Lingyuan, Cao, Lu, Zhu, Shiyu, Papaj, Michał, Dai, Guangyang et al. 2021. "Majorana zero modes in impurity-assisted vortex of LiFeAs superconductor." Nature Communications, 12 (1).
Version
Final published version
Abstract
AbstractThe iron-based superconductor is emerging as a promising platform for Majorana zero mode, which can be used to implement topological quantum computation. One of the most significant advances of this platform is the appearance of large vortex level spacing that strongly protects Majorana zero mode from other low-lying quasiparticles. Despite the advantages in the context of physics research, the inhomogeneity of various aspects hampers the practical construction of topological qubits in the compounds studied so far. Here we show that the stoichiometric superconductor LiFeAs is a good candidate to overcome this obstacle. By using scanning tunneling microscopy, we discover that the Majorana zero modes, which are absent on the natural clean surface, can appear in vortices influenced by native impurities. Our detailed analysis reveals a new mechanism for the emergence of those Majorana zero modes, i.e. native tuning of bulk Dirac fermions. The discovery of Majorana zero modes in this homogeneous material, with a promise of tunability, offers an ideal material platform for manipulating and braiding Majorana zero modes, pushing one step forward towards topological quantum computation.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1038/S41467-021-24372-6
