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Probing electron-hole components of subgap states in Coulomb blockaded Majorana islands

Esben Bork Hansen, Jeroen Danon, and Karsten Flensberg
Phys. Rev. B 97, 041411(R) – Published 24 January 2018

Abstract

Recent tunneling spectroscopy experiments in semiconducting nanowires with proximity-induced superconductivity have reported robust zero-bias conductance peaks. Such a feature can be compatible with the existence of topological Majorana bound states (MBSs) and with a trivial Andreev bound state (ABS) near zero energy. Here, we argue that additional information, that can distinguish between the two cases, can be extracted from Coulomb blockade experiments of Majorana islands. The key is the ratio of peak heights of consecutive conductance peaks gives information about the electron and hole components of the lowest-energy subgap state. In the MBS case, this ratio goes to one-half for long wires, whereas for short wires with finite MBS overlap it oscillates a function of Zeeman energy with the same period as the MBS energy splitting. We explain how the additional information might help to distinguish a trivial ABS at zero energy from a true MBS and show case examples.

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  • Received 22 December 2017
  • Revised 12 January 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.97.041411

©2018 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Esben Bork Hansen1, Jeroen Danon2, and Karsten Flensberg1

  • 1Center for Quantum Devices, Station Q Copenhagen, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen 2100, Denmark
  • 2Center for Quantum Spintronics, Department of Physics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway

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Issue

Vol. 97, Iss. 4 — 15 January 2018

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