Proposed Detection of the Topological Phase in Ring-Shaped Semiconductor-Superconductor Nanowires Using Coulomb Blockade Transport

Björn Zocher; Mats Horsdal; Bernd Rosenow

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.109.227001

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arXiv · 1111.6527

Proposed Detection of the Topological Phase in Ring-Shaped Semiconductor-Superconductor Nanowires Using Coulomb Blockade Transport

Björn Zocher·Mats Horsdal·Bernd Rosenow

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Abstract

In semiconductor-superconductor hybrid structures a topological phase transition is expected as a function of chemical potential or magnetic field strength. We show that signatures of this transition can be observed in nonlinear Coulomb blockade transport through a ring shaped structure. In particular, for a fixed electron parity of the ring, the flux periodicity of the neutral excitation spectrum changes from the usual h/2e periodicity to a characteristic h/e periodicity when tuning the system from the topologically trivial to the nontrivial phase. We relate the h/e periodicity to the recently predicted 4πperiodicity of the Josephson current across a junction formed by two topological superconductors.

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Björn Zocher, Mats Horsdal, Bernd Rosenow. 2012-12-04. Proposed Detection of the Topological Phase in Ring-Shaped Semiconductor-Superconductor Nanowires Using Coulomb Blockade Transport. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.109.227001

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