Robustness of Majorana Modes and Minigaps in a Spin-Orbit-Coupled Semiconductor-Superconductor Heterostructure

TL;DR

This paper investigates the stability of Majorana zero modes and minigaps in a heterostructure combining an s-wave superconductor, a spin-orbit-coupled semiconductor, and a magnetic insulator, highlighting their dependence on physical parameters and impurity effects.

Contribution

It provides a detailed numerical analysis of how Majorana modes and minigaps depend on parameters like Zeeman field, chemical potential, and spin-orbit coupling, revealing unique linear relationships and impurity effects.

Findings

Minigaps depend strongly on spin-orbit coupling strength.

In certain regimes, minigaps are proportional to the superconducting gap Δ_s.

Impurities can increase minigaps and enhance topological stability.

Abstract

We study the robustness of Majorana zero energy modes and minigaps of quasiparticle excitations in a vortex by numerically solving Bogoliubov-deGennes equations in a heterostructure composed of an \textit{s} -wave superconductor, a spin-orbit-coupled semiconductor thin film, and a magnetic insulator. This heterostructure was proposed recently as a platform for observing non-Abelian statistics and performing topological quantum computation. The dependence of the Majorana zero energy states and the minigaps on various physics parameters (Zeeman field, chemical potential, spin-orbit coupling strength) is characterized. We find the minigaps depend strongly on the spin-orbit coupling strength. In certain parameter region, the minigaps are linearly proportional to the \textit{s}-wave superconducting pairing gap $\Delta_{s}$, which is very different from the $\Delta_{s}^{2}$ dependence in a regular \textit{s-} or \textit{\p}-wave superconductor. We characterize the zero energy chiral edge state at the boundary and calculate the STM signal in the vortex core that shows a pronounced zero energy peak. We show that the Majorana zero energy states are robust in the presence of various types of impurities. We find the existence of impurity potential may increase the minigaps and thus benefit topological quantum computation.