Highly tunable time-reversal-invariant topological superconductivity in topological insulator thin films

Fariborz Parhizgar,Annica M Black-Schaffer

doi:10.1038/s41598-017-10510-y

Abstract

We study time-reversal-invariant topological superconductivity in topological insulator (TI) thin films including both intra- and inter-surface pairing. We find a nontrivial topology for multiple different configurations. For intra-surface pairing a π-phase difference between the intra-surface pairing states is required. We show that in this case the resulting topological phase is highly tunable by both an applied electric field and varied chemical potential. For spin-singlet inter-surface pairing, a sign-changing tunnel coupling present in many TI thin films is needed, and again, the topology can be tuned by electric field or doping. Notably, we find that the required inter-surface pairing strength for achieving nontrivial topology can still be subdominant compared to the intra-surface pairing. Finally, for spin-triplet inter-surface pairing we prove that the superconducting state is always topological nontrivial. We show that thin films of Cu-doped Bi2Se3 will likely host such spin-triplet inter-surface pairing. Taken together, these results show that time-reversal-invariant topological superconductivity is common in superconducting TI thin films and that the topological phase and its Kramers pair of Majorana edge modes is highly tunable with an applied electric field and varied chemical potential.

Highlights

Topology in condensed matter systems has received a massive amount of interest in recent years
We have investigated the possibilities for time-reversal-invariant topological superconductivity in 3D topological insulator (TI) thin films
For spin-triplet inter-surface pairing we prove that the superconducting state is always nontrivial, since it is necessarily odd in the surface index

Summary

Model Hamiltonian

The normal state band dispersion of the Hamiltonian in Eq (1) is given by ε(k) = ± t(k)2 + ( vFk ± V)[2 ]. By equating this energy to the chemical potential we find two different Fermi wavevectors kF±, which produce two. Note that inter-surface pairing can be quite prominent in setups such as Fig. 1(b)[56]. It is worth mentioning that an s-wave nature of the intrinsic superconductivity in CuxBi2Se3 has been confirmed experimentally[62] This results in the total order parameter in the surface basis being.

This results in

Conclusion

Additional Information