Half unit cell shift defect induced helical states in Fe-based chalcogenide superconductors

Abstract

Recent scanning tunneling spectroscopy along crystalline domain-walls associated with a half unit cell shift have revealed sub-gap density of states that are expected to arise from helical Majorana modes. Such propagating Majorana modes have been proposed to exist on the surface state of topological materials similar to FeTe$_{\text{1-x}}$Se$_\text{x}$ (FTS) along line defects where the superconducting order parameter (OP) is phase shifted by $\pi$. Here we show that such a $\pi$ shift in theOP across the half unit-cell shift domain-wall can occur in quite conventional tight-binding models of superconducting FTS as a result of the $s_{\pm}$ pairing symmetry across $\Gamma$ and M pockets of FTS. The resultant inter-pocket transmission between $\Gamma$ and M pockets is found to be typically larger than the intra-pocket transmissions. We confirm these conclusions with a calculation based on the Bogoliubov-de-Gennes (BdG) formalism which shows that a $\pi$-shift across the domain-wall is favored for a large range of model parameters for FTS. We discuss parameter regimes where this mechanism might explain the STS experiments as well as propose to test this explanation by searching for evidence of large inter-pocket scattering.