Stripe charge order and its interaction with Majorana bound states in 2M-WS2 topological superconductors
To achieve logic operations via Majorana braiding, positional control of the Majorana bound states (MBSs) must be established. Here we report the observation of a striped surface charge order coexisting with superconductivity and its interaction with the MBS in the topological superconductor 2M-WS<sub>2</sub>, using low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy. By applying an out-of-plane magnetic field, we observe that MBSs are absent in vortices in the region with stripe order. This is in contrast to adjacent underlaying layers without charge order, where vortex-bound MBSs are observed. Via theoretical simulations, we show that the surface stripe order does not destroy the bulk topology, but it can effectively modify the spatial distribution of MBSs, i.e. it pushes them downward, away from the 2M-WS<sub>2</sub> surface. Our findings demonstrate that the interplay of charge order and topological superconductivity can potentially be used to tune the positions of MBSs, and to explore new states of matter.
Authors
- Xiao-Qi Sun
- Xuemin Fan
- Yuqiang Fang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8259-4732)
- Fuqiang Huang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0526-5473)
- Peizhe Tang
- Penghao Zhu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4078-2310)
- Taylor L. Hughes (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1523-389X)
- Wei Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4409-7185)
- Qi-Kun Xue (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4129-1284)
- Yongkang Ju (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-1640-6191)
- J.-B. Yan
- Yonghao Yuan
Institutions
- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (US)
- Universität Hamburg (DE)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Peking University (CN)
- Southern Company (United States) (US)
- Frontier Hospital (ZA)
- Southern University of Science and Technology (CN)
- Beijing Administration Institute (CN)
- Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter (CN)
- Center for Free-Electron Laser Science (DE)
- Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (DE)
- Beijing Academy of Quantum Information Sciences (CN)
- Shanghai Institute of Ceramics (CN)
- Beihang University (CN)
- Tsinghua University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- National Science Review
- Published
- 2024-09-04
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1093/nsr/nwae312
- Citations
- 5
- Primary Topic
- Topological Materials and Phenomena
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 1.69
Funders
- Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
- Ministry of Science and Technology
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Tsinghua University
- State Key Laboratory of Low-Dimensional Quantum Physics
- Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative
- Beijing Young Talent
- Army Research Office