Supercurrent blockade in Josephson junctions with a Majorana wire

We study the Josephson effect for a topologically nontrivial superconducting (TS) wire with Majorana fermion end states and tunnel-coupled to s-wave BCS superconducting (S) electrodes. In an S-TS junction, no supercurrent flow is possible under fairly general conditions. For the S-TS-S junction, bul...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review. B, Condensed matter and materials physics Condensed matter and materials physics, 2012-03, Vol.85 (10), Article 104514
Main Authors: Zazunov, Alex, Egger, Reinhold
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accessibility
Blocking
Condensed matter
Couplings
Electrodes
Josephson effect
Superconductivity
Wire
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Summary:We study the Josephson effect for a topologically nontrivial superconducting (TS) wire with Majorana fermion end states and tunnel-coupled to s-wave BCS superconducting (S) electrodes. In an S-TS junction, no supercurrent flow is possible under fairly general conditions. For the S-TS-S junction, bulk TS quasiparticles must be accessible to have a Josephson effect. In the noninteracting case, we derive the exact current-phase relation (CPR) and find [pi]-periodic behavior with negative critical current for weak tunnel couplings. Charging effects then cause the anomalous CPR I ([varphi]) =Ic COS [varphi], where the parity-sensitive critical current Ic provides a signature for Majorana states.
ISSN:1098-0121
1550-235X
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevB.85.104514