{"id":78601,"date":"2018-05-11T20:22:39","date_gmt":"2018-05-12T03:22:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2018\/05\/toward-tailoring-majorana-bound-states-in-artificially-constructed-magnetic-atom-chains-on-elemental-superconductors"},"modified":"2018-05-15T13:11:20","modified_gmt":"2018-05-15T20:11:20","slug":"toward-tailoring-majorana-bound-states-in-artificially-constructed-magnetic-atom-chains-on-elemental-superconductors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2018\/05\/toward-tailoring-majorana-bound-states-in-artificially-constructed-magnetic-atom-chains-on-elemental-superconductors","title":{"rendered":"Toward tailoring Majorana bound states in artificially constructed magnetic atom chains on elemental superconductors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/toward-tailoring-majorana-bound-states-in-artificially-constructed-magnetic-atom-chains-on-elemental-superconductors.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Realizing Majorana bound states (MBS) in condensed matter systems is a key challenge on the way toward topological quantum computing. As a promising platform, one-dimensional magnetic chains on conventional superconductors were theoretically predicted to host MBS at the chain ends. We demonstrate a novel approach to design of model-type atomic-scale systems for studying MBS using single-atom manipulation techniques. Our artificially constructed atomic Fe chains on a Re surface exhibit spin spiral states and a remarkable enhancement of the local density of states at zero energy being strongly localized at the chain ends. Moreover, the zero-energy modes at the chain ends are shown to emerge and become stabilized with increasing chain length. Tight-binding model calculations based on parameters obtained from ab initio calculations corroborate that the system resides in the topological phase. Our work opens new pathways to design MBS in atomic-scale hybrid structures as a basis for fault-tolerant topological quantum computing.<\/p>\n<p>Majorana fermions \u2014particles being their own antiparticles\u2014have recently attracted renewed interest in various fields of physics. In condensed matter systems, Majorana bound states (MBS) with a non-Abelian quantum exchange statistics have been proposed as a key element for topological quantum computing (2\u20134). One of the most promising platforms to realize MBS are one-dimensional (1D) helical spin systems being proximity-coupled to a conventional s-wave superconductor (5\u20139). In such a surface-confined system, the MBS can directly be investigated by local probe techniques such as scanning tunneling microscopy\/spectroscopy (STM\/STS). Previously reported experiments aiming at the direct visualization and probing of the MBS have focused on self-assembled magnetic chains on superconducting Pb substrates (10\u201315).<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"http:\/\/advances.sciencemag.org\/content\/4\/5\/eaar5251.full\">http:\/\/advances.sciencemag.org\/content\/4\/5\/eaar5251.full<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Realizing Majorana bound states (MBS) in condensed matter systems is a key challenge on the way toward topological quantum computing. As a promising platform, one-dimensional magnetic chains on conventional superconductors were theoretically predicted to host MBS at the chain ends. We demonstrate a novel approach to design of model-type atomic-scale systems for studying MBS using [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1523,48,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computing","category-particle-physics","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78601"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78764,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78601\/revisions\/78764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}