CONDENSED MATTER: ELECTRONIC STRUCTURE, ELECTRICAL, MAGNETIC, AND OPTICAL PROPERTIES |
Quantized Conductance of Majorana Zero Mode in the Vortex of the Topological Superconductor (Li$_{0.84}$Fe$_{0.16}$)OHFeSe
C. Chen1,2†, Q. Liu1,2,3†, T. Z. Zhang1,2, D. Li4, P. P. Shen4, X. L. Dong4, Z.-X. Zhao4, T. Zhang1,2**, D. L. Feng1,2,5**
1State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics and Department of Physics, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433
2Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing 210093
3Science and Technology on Surface Physics and Chemistry Laboratory, Mianyang 621908
4National Laboratory of Superconductivity, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190
5Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Science at Microscale, CAS Center for Excellence in Quantum Information and Quantum Physics, and Department of Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026
C. Chen, Q. Liu, T. Z. Zhang et al  2019 Chin. Phys. Lett. 36 057403
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Abstract The Majorana zero mode (MZM), which manifests as an exotic neutral excitation in superconductors, is the building block of topological quantum computing. It has recently been found in the vortices of several iron-based superconductors as a zero-bias conductance peak in tunneling spectroscopy. In particular, a clean and robust MZM has been observed in the cores of free vortices in (Li$_{0.84}$Fe$_{0.16}$)OHFeSe. Here using scanning tunneling spectroscopy, we demonstrate that Majorana-induced resonant Andreev reflection occurs between the STM tip and this zero-bias bound state, and consequently, the conductance at zero bias is quantized as $2e^{2}/h$. Our results present a hallmark signature of the MZM in the vortex of an intrinsic topological superconductor, together with its intriguing behavior.
Received: 08 April 2019      Published: 09 April 2019
 PACS: 74.45.+c (Proximity effects; Andreev reflection; SN and SNS junctions) 74.70.Xa (Pnictides and chalcogenides) 03.75.Lm (Tunneling, Josephson effect, Bose-Einstein condensates in periodic potentials, solitons, vortices, and topological excitations)
Fund: Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the National Key R&D Program of China under Grant Nos 2016YFA0300200, 2017YFA0303004 and 2017YFA0303003, and the Key Research of Frontier Sciences of CAS under Grant No QYZDY-SSW-SLH001.
Online First Date: 09 April 2019
 TRENDMD: URL: http://cpl.iphy.ac.cn/10.1088/0256-307X/36/5/057403       OR      http://cpl.iphy.ac.cn/Y2019/V36/I5/057403
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