Northwestern Events Calendar

Jan
26
2017

Special Condensed Matter Physics Seminar: Dr. Stephan Rachel: Recent Trends with Majorana Fermions in Condensed Matter Systems

When: Thursday, January 26, 2017
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM CT

Where: Technological Institute, F160, 2145 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60208 map it

Audience: Faculty/Staff - Student - Public - Post Docs/Docs - Graduate Students

Contact: Tina Hoff  

Group: Physics and Astronomy Condensed Matter Physics Seminars

Category: Academic

Description:

Title: Recent Trends with Majorana Fermions in Condensed Matter Systems

Speaker: Dr. Stephan Rachel, TU Dresden

Abstract: 

Majorana fermions, originally proposed as elementary particles acting as their own antiparticles, can be realized in condensed-matter systems as emergent quasiparticles, a situation often accompanied by topological order. Here we propose a physical system which realizes Landau levels - highly degenerate single-particle states usually resulting from an orbital magnetic field acting on charged particles - for Majorana fermions. This is achieved in a variant of a quantum spin system due to Kitaev which is distorted by triaxial strain. This strained Kitaev model displays a spin-liquid phase with charge-neutral Majorana-fermion excitations whose spectrum corresponds to that of Landau levels. We show that these Majorana Landau Levels feature a smoking-gun signature in scattering experiments.

In the second part of the talk, we consider Shiba lattices as novel platforms for topological superconductivity. In analogy to the 1D Shiba chains, here islands of iron atoms are located on a lead s-wave superconductor. These islands feature chiral Majorana edge modes. We will demonstrate that the topological nature of such propagating Majorana edge states can be identified through transport measurement using a scanning tunneling microscope (STM).

Host: James Sauls

 

Condensed Matter, Physics, Astronomy

Add to Calendar

Add Event To My Group:

Please sign-in