Title
Suppression of odd-frequency pairing by phase disorder in a nanowire coupled to Majorana zero modes
Date Issued
01 March 2020
Access level
open access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
Kuzmanovski D.
Black-Schaffer A.M.
Uppsala University
Publisher(s)
American Physical Society
Abstract
Odd-frequency superconductivity is an exotic phase of matter in which Cooper pairing between electrons is entirely dynamical in nature. Majorana zero modes exhibit pure odd-frequency superconducting correlations due to their specific properties. Thus, by tunnel-coupling an array of Majorana zero modes to a spin-polarized wire, it is in principle possible to engineer a bulk one-dimensional odd-frequency spinless s-wave superconductor. We point out here that each tunnel coupling element, being dependent on a large number of material-specific parameters, is generically complex with sample variability in both its magnitude and phase. Using this, we demonstrate that, upon averaging over phase disorder, the induced superconducting, including odd-frequency, correlations in the spin-polarized wire are significantly suppressed. We perform both a rigorous analytical evaluation of the disorder-averaged T matrix in the wire, as well as numerical calculations based on a tight-binding model, and find that the anomalous, i.e., superconducting, part of the T matrix is highly suppressed with phase disorder. We also demonstrate that this suppression is concurrent with the filling of the single-particle excitation gap by smearing the near-zero-frequency peaks, due to formation of bound states that satisfy phase-matching conditions between spatially separated Majorana zero modes. Our results convey important constraints on the parameter control needed in practical realizations of Majorana zero mode structures and suggest that the achievement of a bulk one-dimensional odd-ω superconductivity from Majorana zero modes demand full control of the system parameters.
Volume
101
Issue
9
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Física de la materia condensada Física de partículas, Campos de la Física
Publication version
Version of Record
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-85083158094
Source
Physical Review B
ISSN of the container
2469-9950
Sponsor(s)
We thank J. Klinovaja and P. Burset for helpful discussions. D.K. acknowledges funding from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg foundation through the Wallenberg Academic Fellow grant of J. Nilsson, J.C. and A.M.B.-S. acknowledge support from the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet, Grant No. 2018-03488), the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Unions Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (ERC- 2017-StG-757553), and the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation through the Wallenberg Academy Fellows program
Sources of information: Directorio de Producción Científica Scopus