Proximity Effect Between Topological Insulator and D-Wave Superconductors

The search for new quantum phenomena and novel functionalities have been among the tremendous driving forces in condensed matter physics and materials science. In recent years, due to the development of topology theories, many concepts of high-energy physics have found its counterpart with the quasiparticle excitations in condensed matter physics, such as the Dirac Fermions in Graphene [1] and Weyl Fermions in recently discovered Weyl semimental [2, 3]. Among them, Majorana zero modes, i.e. Majorana Fermions, which are their own antiparticles and occur at exactly zero energy, are particularly intriguing, not only because of its special properties obeying non-Abelian statistics, but also its potential application as building blocks for topological fault-tolerant quantum computation [4, 5]. Although recent one-dimensional semiconductor quantum wires coupled with conventional superconductors show the traces of Majorana zero modes, the decisive evidence has been lacking and many debates remain [6].