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Exotic circuit elements from zero-modes in hybrid superconductor–quantum-Hall systems

Nature Physics volume 10, pages 877–882 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

The fractional quantum Hall effect and superconductivity, remarkable phenomena in their own right, can harbour even more exotic physics at their interface. In particular, coupling quantum Hall edges with a superconductor can create emergent excitations known as non-Abelian anyons that trap widely coveted Majorana fermion zero-modes and generalizations thereof. We uncover non-local transport signatures of these zero-modes that not only provide striking experimental signatures of the anyons, but moreover allow one to construct novel circuit elements, including superconducting current and voltage mirrors, fractional charge transistors and flux-based capacitors. Underlying this unusual transport is a phenomenon that we term ‘perfect Andreev conversion’—whereby quasiparticles propagating chirally at the edge reverse their electric charge as a result of hybridization with the zero-modes. Our findings suggest numerous experimental directions in the study of quantum-Hall–superconductor systems hybrids and highlight a fundamentally new application of non-Abelian anyons.

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Figure 1: Zero-modes in 1D ‘wires’.
Figure 2: Andreev reflection and conversion.
Figure 3: Even/odd effect.
Figure 4: Mirror and swap.
Figure 5: Flux capacitor.

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Acknowledgements

We are indebted to J. P. Eisenstein, M. P. A. Fisher, C. Nayak and A. Stern for numerous enlightening discussions. We also acknowledge funding from the NSF through grants DMR-1341822 (D.J.C. and J.A.) and DMR-0748925 (K.S.); the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (J.A.); the DARPA QuEST program (K.S.); the Caltech Institute for Quantum Information and Matter, an NSF Physics Frontiers Center with support of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation; and the Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics at Caltech.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA

    David J. Clarke & Jason Alicea

  2. Institute for Quantum Information and Matter, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA

    David J. Clarke, Jason Alicea & Kirill Shtengel

  3. Microsoft Research, Station Q, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA

    David J. Clarke

  4. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Riverside, California 92521, USA

    Kirill Shtengel

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  1. David J. Clarke
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Contributions

D.J.C. contributed the calculations and devised the circuit elements. The manuscript was written by D.J.C. and J.A., while additional reality checks were provided by J.A. and K.S.

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Correspondence to David J. Clarke.

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Clarke, D., Alicea, J. & Shtengel, K. Exotic circuit elements from zero-modes in hybrid superconductor–quantum-Hall systems. Nature Phys 10, 877–882 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3114

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