Berlin 2012 – scientific programme
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TT: Fachverband Tiefe Temperaturen
TT 4: Transport: Topological Insulators 1 (jointly with HL and MA)
TT 4.9: Talk
Monday, March 26, 2012, 11:45–12:00, H 3010
Coulomb blockade signatures of the topological phase transition in semiconductor-superconductor nanowires — •Björn Zocher1,2, Mats Horsdal1,3, and Bernd Rosenow1 — 1Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Leipzig, Germany — 2Max Planck Institut für Mathematik in den Naturwissenschaften, Leipzig, Germany — 3Max Planck Institut für Festkörperforschung, Stuttgart, Germany
In semiconductor-superconductor hybrid structures a topological phase transition is expected as a function of chemical potential or magnetic field strength. We show that signatures of this transition can be observed in nonlinear Coulomb blockaded transport through a ring shaped structure. In particular, for a fixed electron parity of the ring, the flux periodicity of the neutral excitation spectrum changes from the usual h/2e-periodicity to a characteristic h/e-periodicity when tuning the system from the topologically trivial to the nontrivial phase. We relate the h/e-periodicity to the recently predicted 4π-periodicity of the Josephson current across a junction formed by two topological superconductors.