Alexandra Palacio Morales
Hybrid magnetic-superconducting systems have attracted widespread interest for their promising potential in topological quantum computation. Nano-fabrication techniques combined with local probe microscopies revealed the emergence of zero-energy modes on ferromagnetic chains [1] and ferromagnetic nanoislands [2] on s-wave superconductors. However, the observation of Majorana Fermion (MF) modes in these hybrid systems is still a subject of debate and has raised questions about experimental considerations that must be accounted. Lack of well-defined structures, MF spatial distribution and evolution inside the hybrid structures are among the reasons of these concerns. Nevertheless, advances in nano-fabrication techniques such as atom manipulation combined with local probe microscopies will paved the way to overcome them.
Here, we report on the evolution of Yu-Shiba-Rusinov bands into MF by atomic length manipulation of Fe magnetic chain on Re(0001) surface [3]. Moreover, we report on the first unambiguous experimental detection and visualization of chiral Majorana edge states in a monolayer topological superconductor, a prototypical magnet-superconductor hybrid system comprised of nano-scale Fe islands of monoatomic height on a Re(0001)-O(2×1) surface [4, 5].
[1] S. Nadj-Perge et al., Science 346, 602 (2014)[2] G. C. Ménard et al., Nat. Comm. 8, 2040 (2017)
[3] H. Kim et al., Science Adv. 4, eaar5251 (2018)
[4] A. Palacio-Morales et al., Nano Lett. 16, 6252-6256 (2016)
[5] A. Palacio-Morales et al., Science Adv. 5, eaav6600 (2019)