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Electron temperature and tunnel coupling dependence of zero-bias and almost-zero-bias conductance peaks in Majorana nanowires

F. Setiawan, Chun-Xiao Liu, Jay D. Sau, and S. Das Sarma
Phys. Rev. B 96, 184520 – Published 22 November 2017

Abstract

A one-dimensional semiconductor nanowire proximitized by a nearby superconductor may become a topological superconductor hosting localized Majorana zero modes at the two wire ends in the presence of spin-orbit coupling and Zeeman spin splitting (arising from an external magnetic field). The hallmark of the presence of such Majorana zero modes is the appearance of a zero-temperature quantized zero-bias conductance peak in the tunneling spectroscopy of the Majorana nanowire. We theoretically study the temperature and the tunnel coupling dependence of the tunneling conductance in such nanowires to understand possible intrinsic deviations from the predicted conductance quantization. We find that the full temperature and the tunneling transmission dependence of the tunnel conductance does not obey any simple scaling relation, and estimating the zero-temperature conductance from finite-temperature and finite-tunnel-broadening tunneling data is difficult in general. A scaling relation, however, does hold at the extreme weak-tunneling low-temperature limit where the conductance depends only on the dimensionless ratio of the temperature and tunnel broadening. We also consider the tunneling contributions from nontopological Andreev bound states which may produce almost-zero-bias conductance peaks, which are not easy to distinguish from the Majorana-induced zero-bias peaks, finding that the nontopological almost-zero modes associated with Andreev bound states manifest similar temperature and transmission dependence as the topological Majorana modes. We comment on the Zeeman splitting dependence of the zero-bias conductance peak for finite temperature and tunnel coupling.

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  • Received 7 September 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.96.184520

©2017 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

F. Setiawan*, Chun-Xiao Liu, Jay D. Sau, and S. Das Sarma

  • Condensed Matter Theory Center, Joint Quantum Institute, Station Q Maryland, and Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742-4111, USA

  • *setiawan@umd.edu

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Issue

Vol. 96, Iss. 18 — 1 November 2017

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