Brouwer, Piet W. and Duckheim, Mathias and Romito, Alessandro and Von Oppen, Felix (2011) Topological superconducting phases in disordered quantum wires with strong spin-orbit coupling. Physical Review B - Condensed Matter and Materials Physics, 84 (14). ISSN 1098-0121
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
Zeeman fields can drive semiconductor quantum wires with strong spin-orbit coupling and in proximity to s-wave superconductors into a topological phase which supports end Majorana fermions and offers an attractive platform for realizing topological quantum information processing. Here, we investigate how potential disorder affects the topological phase by a combination of analytical and numerical approaches. Most prominently, we find that the robustness of the topological phase against disorder depends sensitively and nonmonotonously on the Zeeman field applied to the wire.