Towards Realizing Topological Superconductivity in Quantum Wires

Condensed Matter Seminars

Speaker: Vincent Mourik, University of New South Wales
Date & Time: June 23, 2016, 2:00 - 3:00
Location: Hennings 318
Local Contact: Dmitry Pikulin
Intended Audience: Graduate

The engineering of topological superconductors and the observation and control of their non-abelian quasiparticles is a dominant effort in condensed matter physics, both out of fundamental interest and for their potential application in topological quantum computing. A one-dimensional semiconducting nanowire with strong spin-orbit interaction that is proximity coupled to a standard s-wave superconductor is a particularly attractive implementation of a topological superconductor due to its relative ease of fabrication. In this talk I will give an overview of my PhD research on this topic at Delft University of Technology, with a particular focus on the Josephson effect in the presence of a parallel magnetic field in such nanowires.