Majorana states in a three-site Kitaev chain
Date:
Tuesday, January 30, 2024 11:00 - 12:00
Speaker:
Alberto Bordin (QuTech, Delft University of Technology | NL)
Location:
Office Bldg West / Ground floor / Foyer seminar room (I21.EG.128)
Series:
Physical Sciences Seminar
Host:
Georgios Katsaros
Contact:
Widdmann Sandra
Majorana bound states are non-abelian excitations predicted to emerge at the edges of topological superconductors. A toy model of a one-dimensional chain hosting such states was proposed by Kitaev [1] and can be implemented in quantum dots coupled by superconductors [2]. Remarkably, a minimal chain of just two sites can already host Majorana states [3] and was recently realized experimentally [4]. However, two-site Kitaev chains need fine-tuning to a sweet spot and are thus not topologically protected. In this work, we realise a three-site Kitaev chain device [5] and show signatures of Majorana states with increased protection.
[1] A. Y. Kitaev, Physics-Uspekhi 44, 131 (2001), cond-mat/0010440.
[2] J. D. Sau and S. D. Sarma, Nature Communications 3, 964 (2012), 1111.6600.
[3] M. Leijnse and K. Flensberg, Physical Review B 86, 134528 (2012), 1207.4299.
[4] T. Dvir, G. Wang, N. van Loo, C.-X. Liu, G. P. Mazur, A. Bordin, S. L. Ten Haaf, J.-Y. Wang,
D. van Driel, F. Zatelli, et al., Nature 614, 445 (2023).
[5] A. Bordin, X. Li, D. van Driel, J. C. Wolff, Q. Wang, S. L. ten Haaf, G. Wang, N. van Loo,
L. P. Kouwenhoven, and T. Dvir, arXiv preprint arXiv:2306.07696 (2023).