Observation of the fractional ac Josephson effect: the signature of Majorana particles

Details Observation of the fractional ac Josephson effect: the signature of Majorana particles Observation of the fractional ac Josephson effect: the signature of Majorana particles

2012-04-18

arxiv.org/abs/1204.4212v1

Physics

Condensed Matter

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics

this manuscript has been submitted to Science on March 20, 2012

Scientific paper

We report the observation of the fractional ac Josephson effect in hybrid semiconductor/superconductor InSb/Nb nanowire junctions, a hallmark of topological matter. When the junction is irradiated with rf frequency f at zero external magnetic field, quantized voltage steps (Shapiro steps) with a height \Delta V=hf/2e are observed, as is expected for conventional superconductor junctions where the supercurrent is carried by charge-2e Cooper pairs. At high fields the height of the first Shapiro step is doubled to hf/e. The supercurrent carried by charge-e quasiparticles is a unique signature of Majorana fermions, elusive particles predicted ca. 80 years ago.

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