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Anomalous Floquet Chiral Topological Superconductivity in a Topological Insulator Sandwich Structure

Rui-Xing Zhang, S. Das Sarma

2021Physical Review Letters30 citationsDOIOpen Access PDF

Abstract

We show that Floquet chiral topological superconductivity arises naturally in Josephson junctions made of magnetic topological insulator-superconductor sandwich structures. The Josephson phase modulation associated with an applied bias voltage across the junction drives the system into the anomalous Floquet chiral topological superconductor hosting chiral Majorana edge modes in the quasienergy spectrum, with the bulk Floquet bands carrying zero Chern numbers. The bias voltage acts as a tuning parameter enabling novel Floquet topological quantum phase transitions driving the system into a myriad of exotic Majorana-carrying Floquet topological superconducting phases. Our theory establishes a new paradigm for realizing Floquet chiral topological superconductivity in solid-state systems, which should be experimentally directly accessible.

Topics & Concepts

Floquet theoryPhysicsMAJORANATopological insulatorTopology (electrical circuits)SuperconductivityJosephson effectWinding numberCondensed matter physicsQuantum mechanicsCombinatoricsMathematicsMathematical analysisNonlinear systemTopological Materials and PhenomenaAdvanced Condensed Matter PhysicsQuantum many-body systems
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