Topological Superconductivity by Engineering Noncollinear Magnetism in Magnet/ Superconductor Heterostructures: A Realistic Prescription for 2D Kitaev Model

• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2303.03938
• Publication Date: 2023-01-01
• Authors: Chatterjee, Pritam; Banik, Sayan; Bera, Sandip; Ghosh, Arnob Kumar; Pradhan, Saurabh; Saha, Arijit; Nandy, Ashis K.
• Keywords: Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con); Condensed Matter - Materials Science; Condensed Matter - Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics; Condensed Matter - Superconductivity; 0103 physical sciences; Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall); Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci); FOS: Physical sciences; 01 natural sciences

This is the published version<br/>We report on a realistic and rather general scheme where noncollinear magnetic textures proximitized with the most common $s$-wave superconductor can appear as the alternative to $p$-wave superconductor{--}the prime proposal to realize two-dimensional (2D) Kitaev model for topological superconductors (TSCs) hosting Majorana flat edge mode (MFEM). A general minimal Hamiltonian suitable for magnet/superconductor heterostructures reveals robust MFEM within the gap of Shiba bands due to the emergence of an effective ``$p_x+p_y$"-type $p$-wave pairing, spatially localized at the edges of a 2D magnetic domain of spin-spiral. We finally verify this concept by considering Mn (Cr) monolayer grown on a $s$-wave superconducting substrate, Nb(110) under strain (Nb(001)). In both 2D cases, the antiferromagnetic spin-spiral solutions exhibit robust MFEM at certain domain edges that is beyond the scope of the trivial extension of 1D spin-chain model in 2D. This approach, particularly when the MFEM appears in the TSC phase for such heterostructure materials, offers a perspective to extend the realm of the TSC in 2D.<br/>