So Takei

Publications (4)7.37 Total impact

• Article: Soft Superconducting Gap in Semiconductor Majorana Nanowires.

  So Takei, Benjamin M Fregoso, Hoi-Yin Hui, Alejandro M Lobos, S Das Sarma
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  ABSTRACT: We theoretically consider the ubiquitous soft gap measured in the tunneling conductance of semiconductor-superconductor hybrid structures, in which recently observed signatures of elusive Majorana bound states have created much excitement. We systematically study the effects of magnetic and nonmagnetic disorder, temperature, dissipative Cooper pair breaking, and interface inhomogeneity, which could lead to a soft gap. We find that interface inhomogeneity with moderate dissipation is the only viable mechanism that is consistent with the experimental observations. Our work indicates that improving the quality of the superconductor-semiconductor interface should result in a harder induced gap.
  Physical Review Letters 05/2013; 110(18):186803. · 7.37 Impact Factor
• Article: Topological superconductivity and Majorana fermions in hybrid structures involving cuprate high-T_c superconductors

  So Takei, Benjamin M. Fregoso, Victor Galitski, S. Das Sarma
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  ABSTRACT: The possibility of inducing topological superconductivity with cuprate high-temperature superconductors (HTSC) is studied for various heterostructures. We first consider a ballistic planar junction between a HTSC and a metallic ferromagnet. We assume that inversion symmetry breaking at the tunnel barrier gives rise to Rashba spin-orbit coupling in the barrier and allows equal-spin triplet superconductivity to exist in the ferromagnet. Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations are obtained by explicitly modeling the barrier, and taking account of the transport anisotropy in the HTSC. By making use of the self-consistent boundary conditions and solutions for the barrier and HTSC regions, an effective equation of motion for the ferromagnet is obtained where Andreev scattering at the barrier is incorporated as a boundary condition for the ferromagnetic region. For a ferromagnet layer deposited on a (100) facet of the HTSC, triplet p-wave superconductivity is induced. For the layer deposited on a (110) facet, the induced gap does not have the p-wave orbital character, but has an even orbital symmetry and an odd dependence on energy. For the layer on the (001) facet, an exotic f-wave superconductivity is induced. We also consider the induced triplet gap in a one-dimensional half-metallic nanowire deposited on a (001) facet of a HTSC. We find that for a wire axis along the a-axis, a robust triplet p-wave gap is induced. For a wire oriented 45 degrees away from the a-axis the induced triplet p-wave gap vanishes. For the appropriately oriented wire, the induced p-wave gap should give rise to Majorana fermions at the ends of the half-metallic wire. Based on our result, topological superconductivity in a semi-conductor nanowire may also be possible given that it is oriented along the a-axis of the HTSC.
  06/2012;
• Source

  Available from: ArXiv

  Article: Microscopic theory for a ferromagnetic-nanowire/superconductor heterostructure: Transport, fluctuations and topological superconductivity

  So Takei, Victor Galitski
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  ABSTRACT: Motivated by the recent experiment of Wang et al. [Nature Physics 6, 389 (2010)], who observed a highly unusual transport behavior of ferromagnetic Cobalt nanowires proximity-coupled to superconducting electrodes, we study proximity effect and temperature-dependent transport in such a mesoscopic hybrid structure. It is assumed that the asymmetry in the tunneling barrier gives rise to the Rashba spin-orbit-coupling in the barrier that enables induced p-wave superconductivity in the ferromagnet to exist. We first develop a microscopic theory of Andreev scattering at the spin-orbit-coupled interface, derive a set of self-consistent boundary conditions, and find an expression for the p-wave minigap in terms of the microscopic parameters of the contact. Second, we study temperature-dependence of the resistance near the superconducting transition and find that it should generally feature a fluctuation-induced peak. The upturn in resistance is related to the suppression of the single-particle density of states due to the formation of fluctuating pairs, whose tunneling is suppressed. In conclusion, we discuss this and related setups involving ferromagnetic nanowires in the context of one-dimensional topological superconductors. It is argued that to realize unpaired end Majorana modes, one does not necessarily need a half-metallic state, but a partial spin polarization may suffice. Finally, we propose yet another related class of material systems -- ferromagnetic semiconductor wires coupled to ferromagnetic superconductors -- where direct realization of Kitaev-Majorana model should be especially straightforward.
  01/2012;
• Source

  Available from: ArXiv

  Article: Low-density molecular gas of tightly-bound Rashba-Dresselhaus fermions

  So Takei, Chien-Hung Lin, Brandon M. Anderson, Victor Galitski
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  ABSTRACT: We study interacting Rashba-Dresselhaus fermions in two spatial dimensions. First, we present a new exact solution to the two-particle pairing problem of spin-orbit-coupled fermions for arbitrary Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit interactions. An exact molecular wave function and the Green function are explicitly derived along with the binding energy and the spectrum of the molecular state. In the second part, we consider a thermal Boltzmann gas of fermionic molecules and compute the time-of-flight velocity and spin distributions for a single fermion in the gas. We show that the pairing signatures can be observed already in the first-moment expectation values, such as time-of-flight density and spin profiles.
  11/2011;