From Andreev to Majorana bound states in hybrid superconductor–semiconductor nanowires

Review (2020)

Authors

Elsa Prada Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Pablo San-Jose Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid (ICMM)
M.W.A. de Moor QRD/Kouwenhoven Lab - QuTech Advanced Research Centre , Kavli institute of nanoscience Delft
A. Geresdi QRD/Geresdi Lab - QuTech Advanced Research Centre , Kavli institute of nanoscience Delft
Eduardo J.H. Lee Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Jelena Klinovaja University of Basel
Daniel Loss University of Basel
J. Nygård University of Copenhagen
Ramón Aguado Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid (ICMM)
Leo P. Kouwenhoven QN/Kouwenhoven Lab - AS , Kavli institute of nanoscience Delft
Research Group
QRD/Kouwenhoven Lab (QuTech Advanced Research Centre) (TU Delft)
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Published Date

2020

Language

English

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Faculty

QuTech Advanced Research Centre

Department

Qubit Research Division

Research Group

QRD/Kouwenhoven Lab

Abstract

Inhomogeneous superconductors can host electronic excitations, known as Andreev bound states (ABSs), below the superconducting energy gap. With the advent of topological superconductivity, a new kind of zero-energy ABS with exotic qualities, known as a Majorana bound state (MBS), has been discovered. A special property of MBS wavefunctions is their non-locality, which, together with non-Abelian braiding, is the key to their promise in topological quantum computation. We focus on hybrid superconductor–semiconductor nanowires as a flexible and promising experimental platform to realize one-dimensional topological superconductivity and MBSs. We review the main properties of ABSs and MBSs, state-of-the-art techniques for their detection and theoretical progress beyond minimal models, including different types of robust zero modes that may emerge without a band-topological transition.