Self-organized topological superconductivity in magnetic adatom lattices

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• Mike Schecter, Nils Bohr Institute, Copenhagen
• Tuesday 21 June 2016, 13:15-15:00
• Theory Library.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Mike Gunn.

Note unusual day and time.

We study a chain of magnetic adatoms exchange coupled to the surface of an s-wave superconductor. In the normal state the chain orders into a collinear configuration, while in the superconducting phase we find that ferromagnetism is unstable to the formation of a magnetic spiral state. Beyond weak exchange coupling the spiral wave vector greatly exceeds the inverse superconducting coherence length as a result of the strong spin-spin interaction mediated through the subgap band of Yu-Shiba-Rusinov states induced by the magnetic adatoms. Moreover, the simple spin-spin exchange description breaks down as the subgap band crosses the Fermi energy, wherein the spiral phase becomes stabilized by the spontaneous opening of a p-wave superconducting gap within the band. This leads to the possibility of electron-driven topological superconductivity with Majorana boundary modes using magnetic atoms on superconducting surfaces.

This talk is part of the Theoretical Physics Seminars series.

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• Bham Talks
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