Signature of a pair of Majorana zero modes in superconducting gold surface states
Data files
Mar 27, 2020 version files 2.77 MB
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Fermi_level_shift_of_gold_surface_state.opj
832.81 KB
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rectangular_island_location-1_field_dependence.opj
68 KB
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rectangular_island_location-8_field_dependence.opj
77.39 KB
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rectangular_island_tunneling_zero_field_and_full_field.opj
233.89 KB
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round_island_topologicla_transition.opj
1.39 MB
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round_island_tunneling_under_full_field.opj
68.99 KB
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round_island_tunneling_under_zero_field.opj
99.25 KB
Abstract
Under certain conditions, a fermion in a superconductor can separate in space into two parts known as Majorana zero modes, which are immune to decoherence from local noise sources and are attractive building blocks for quantum computers. Promising experimental progress has been made to demonstrate Majorana zero modes in materials with strong spin-orbit coupling proximity coupled to superconductors. Here we show direct evidence of the split Majorana pair in a new material platform utilizing the two-dimensional surface states of gold, which is intrinsically scalable for building the complex nanowire circuits for topological qubits. Using scanning tunneling microscope to probe EuS islands grown on top of gold nanowires, we confirm the Majorana pair by demonstrating two spatially well separated zero bias tunneling conductance peaks aligned along the direction of the applied magnetic field. Our work opens the door towards scalable and robust Majorana based topological qubits.
Data is collected using scanning tunneling microscopy. It is processed using Origin software.