Engineering one-dimensional topological phases on p-wave superconductors

Isac Sahlberg, Alex Westström, Kim Pöyhönen, and Teemu Ojanen
Phys. Rev. B 95, 184512 – Published 18 May 2017

Abstract

In this paper, we study how, with the aid of impurity engineering, two-dimensional p-wave superconductors can be employed as a platform for one-dimensional topological phases. We discover that, while chiral and helical parent states themselves are topologically nontrivial, a chain of scalar impurities on both systems supports multiple topological phases and Majorana end states. We develop an approach which allows us to extract the topological invariants and subgap spectrum, even away from the center of the gap, for the representative cases of spinless, chiral, and helical superconductors. We find that the magnitude of the topological gaps protecting the nontrivial phases may be a significant fraction of the gap of the underlying superconductor.

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  • Received 17 December 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.95.184512

©2017 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Isac Sahlberg, Alex Westström, Kim Pöyhönen, and Teemu Ojanen*

  • Department of Applied Physics (LTL), Aalto University, P.O. Box 15100, FI-00076 AALTO, Finland

  • *Corresponding author: teemuo@boojum.hut.fi

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Issue

Vol. 95, Iss. 18 — 1 May 2017

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