Experimental Phase Diagram Of Zero-Bias Conductance Peaks In Superconductor/Semiconductor Nanowire Devices

Jun Chen
Peng Yu
John Stenger
Moïra Hocevar
Diana Car
Sébastien R. Plissard
Erik P. A. M. Bakkers
Tudor D. Stanescu
Sergey M. Frolov

Abstract

Topological superconductivity is an exotic state of matter characterized by spinless p-wave Cooper pairing of electrons and by Majorana zero modes at the edges. The first signature of topological superconductivity is a robust zero-bias peak in tunneling conductance. We perform tunneling experiments on semiconductor nanowires (InSb) coupled to superconductors (NbTiN) and establish the zero-bias peak phase in the space of gate voltage and external magnetic field. Our findings are consistent with calculations for a finite-length topological nanowire and provide means for Majorana manipulation as required for braiding and topological quantum bits.