Disorder-induced chiral and helical Majorana edge modes in a two-dimensional Ammann-Beenker quasicrystal

TL;DR

This study reveals that disorder can induce and preserve Majorana edge modes in two-dimensional quasicrystals, expanding understanding of topological phases in non-periodic systems and suggesting new avenues for quantum research.

Contribution

It demonstrates the emergence of disorder-induced topological phases with Majorana edge modes in 2D quasicrystals, a novel finding in topological matter research.

Findings

Chiral and helical Majorana edge modes are robust against weak disorder.

Disorder can induce topologically nontrivial phases with Majorana modes.

Topological phases are confirmed via Bott index and thermal conductance calculations.

Abstract

Recent research on disorder effects in topological phases in quasicrystalline systems has received much attention. In this work, by numerically computing the (spin) Bott index and the thermal conductance, we reveal the effects of disorder on a class D chiral topological superconductor and a class DIII time-reversal-invariant topological superconductor in a two-dimensional Ammann-Beenker tiling quasicrystalline lattice. We demonstrate that both the topologically protected chiral and helical Majorana edge modes are robust against weak disorder in the quasicrystalline lattice. More fascinating is the discovery of disorder-induced topologically nontrivial phases exhibiting chiral and helical Majorana edge modes in class D and DIII topological superconductor systems, respectively. Our findings open the door for the research on disorder-induced Majorana edge modes in quasicrystalline systems.