Anomalous Josephson effect in semiconducting nanowires as a signature of the topologically nontrivial phase

We study Josephson junctions made of semiconducting nanowires with Rashba spin-orbit coupling, where superconducting correlations are induced by the proximity effect. In the presence of a suitably directed magnetic field, the system displays the anomalous Josephson effect: a nonzero supercurrent in...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review. B 2016-05, Vol.93 (17), Article 174502
Main Authors: Nesterov, Konstantin N., Houzet, Manuel, Meyer, Julia S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Condensed matter
Displays
Josephson effect
Magnetic fields
Nanowires
Signatures
Superconductivity
Tuning
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Summary:We study Josephson junctions made of semiconducting nanowires with Rashba spin-orbit coupling, where superconducting correlations are induced by the proximity effect. In the presence of a suitably directed magnetic field, the system displays the anomalous Josephson effect: a nonzero supercurrent in the absence of a phase bias between two superconductors. We show that this anomalous current can be increased significantly by tuning the nanowire into the helical regime. In particular, in a short junction, a large anomalous current is a signature for topologically nontrivial superconductivity in the nanowire.
ISSN:2469-9950
2469-9969
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevB.93.174502