Abstract
Majorana fermions can be realized as quasiparticles in topological superconductors, with potential applications in topological quantum computing. Recently, lattices of magnetic adatoms deposited on the surface of -wave superconductors—Shiba lattices—have been proposed as a new platform for topological superconductivity. These systems possess the great advantage that they are accessible via scanning-probe techniques and thus enable the local manipulation and detection of Majorana modes. Using a nonequilibrium Green's function technique we demonstrate that the topological Majorana edge modes of nanoscopic Shiba islands display universal electronic and transport properties. Most remarkably, these Majorana modes possess a quantized charge conductance that is proportional to the topological Chern number, , and carry a supercurrent whose chirality reflects the sign of . These results establish nanoscopic Shiba islands as promising components in future topology-based devices.
5 More- Received 13 July 2017
- Revised 22 September 2017
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.96.205131
©2017 American Physical Society