Magnet-superconductor hybrid heterostructures constitute a promising candidate system for the quantum engineering of chiral topological superconductivity. Here, we investigate the stability of their topological phases in the presence of various types of potential and magnetic disorder. In particular we consider magnetic disorder in the coupling strength and spin orientation, as well as percolation-type disorder representing missing magnetic moments. We show that potential disorder leads to the weakest suppression of topological phases, while percolation disorder leads to their strongest suppression. In addition, disorder can also lead to the emergence of topological phases in part of the phase diagram that are topologically trivial in a clean system. Moreover, we demonstrate that in the case of correlated potential disorder, the spatial structure of the disorder potential is correlated not only with the particle number density, but also the Chern number density. Finally, we demonstrate how the disorder-induced destruction of topological superconductivity is reflected in the spatial structure and distribution of the Chern number density.

• Received 6 May 2019
• Revised 3 October 2019

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.100.235102