Abstract
The iron-based superconductor is emerging as a promising platform for Majorana zero mode, which can be used to implement topological quantum computation. One of the most significant advances of this platform is the appearance of large vortex level spacing that strongly protects Majorana zero mode from other low-lying quasiparticles. Despite the advantages in the context of physics research, the inhomogeneity of various aspects hampers the practical construction of topological qubits in the compounds studied so far. Here we show that the stoichiometric superconductor LiFeAs is a good candidate to overcome this obstacle. By using scanning tunneling microscopy, we discover that the Majorana zero modes, which are absent on the natural clean surface, can appear in vortices influenced by native impurities. Our detailed analysis reveals a new mechanism for the emergence of those Majorana zero modes, i.e. native tuning of bulk Dirac fermions. The discovery of Majorana zero modes in this homogeneous material, with a promise of tunability, offers an ideal material platform for manipulating and braiding Majorana zero modes, pushing one step forward towards topological quantum computation.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 4146 |
| Journal | Nature Communications |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Dec 1 2021 |
Funding
We thank X.-X. Wu, P. Zhang, and J.-Q. Lin for helpful discussions. This work at IOP is supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (11888101, 61888102, 51991340, 11820101003, and 11921004), the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB28000000, XDB07000000) and the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (2016YFA0202300, 2019YFA0308500, 2018YFA0305800, and 2018YFA0305700) and Beijing Municipal Science & Technology Commission (No. Z191100007219012). The work at MIT is supported by DOE Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering under award no. DE-SC0019275.