TY - JOUR

T1 - Probing electron-hole components of subgap states in Coulomb blockaded Majorana islands

AU - Hansen, Esben Bork

AU - Danon, Jeroen

AU - Flensberg, Karsten

N1 - [Qdev]

PY - 2018/1/24

Y1 - 2018/1/24

N2 - Recent tunneling spectroscopy experiments in semiconducting nanowires with proximity-induced superconductivityhave reported robust zero-bias conductance peaks. Such a feature can be compatible with the existence oftopological Majorana bound states (MBSs) and with a trivial Andreev bound state (ABS) near zero energy. Here,we argue that additional information, that can distinguish between the two cases, can be extracted from Coulombblockade experiments of Majorana islands. The key is the ratio of peak heights of consecutive conductance peaksgives information about the electron and hole components of the lowest-energy subgap state. In the MBS case,this ratio goes to one-half for long wires, whereas for short wires with finite MBS overlap it oscillates a functionof Zeeman energy with the same period as the MBS energy splitting. We explain how the additional informationmight help to distinguish a trivial ABS at zero energy from a true MBS and show case examples.

AB - Recent tunneling spectroscopy experiments in semiconducting nanowires with proximity-induced superconductivityhave reported robust zero-bias conductance peaks. Such a feature can be compatible with the existence oftopological Majorana bound states (MBSs) and with a trivial Andreev bound state (ABS) near zero energy. Here,we argue that additional information, that can distinguish between the two cases, can be extracted from Coulombblockade experiments of Majorana islands. The key is the ratio of peak heights of consecutive conductance peaksgives information about the electron and hole components of the lowest-energy subgap state. In the MBS case,this ratio goes to one-half for long wires, whereas for short wires with finite MBS overlap it oscillates a functionof Zeeman energy with the same period as the MBS energy splitting. We explain how the additional informationmight help to distinguish a trivial ABS at zero energy from a true MBS and show case examples.

U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevB.97.041411

DO - 10.1103/PhysRevB.97.041411

M3 - Journal article

VL - 97

JO - Physical Review B

JF - Physical Review B

SN - 2469-9950

IS - 4

M1 - 041411(R)

ER -