Effective nodal topological superconductivity driven by <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mrow><mml:mi>s</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:math>-wave pairing and the ferromagnetic proximity effect in materials with persistent spin
Nodal topological superconductivity (NTSC) with flat Majorana boundary modes connecting gapless nodal points represents a nontrivial superconductivity (SC) phase capable of fault-tolerant topological quantum computing. In addition to unconventional SC with nodal pairing gap, two-dimensional (2D) NTSC has been effectively achieved from conventional $s$-wave SC by applying a magnetic field to symmetry-protected out-of-plane persistent spin texture (PST). Here we demonstrate that the effective NTSC can be alternatively achieved from in-plane PST under the ferromagnetic proximity effect, where the gapless nodal points within the SC gap remain robust at the entire energy range of the PST-enforced nodal line electronic states. This discovery positions (110)-oriented GaAs/AlGaAs and InAlAs/InGaAs quantum wells with extrinsic in-plane PST as ready-made NTSC platforms. Meanwhile, we propose that intrinsic in-plane PST is available in 2D stoichiometric materials with ${C}_{2v}$ or ${D}_{2}$ point group symmetry by balancing different antisymmetric spin-orbit coupling effects. Our first-principles calculations indicate the balance is readily struck in monolayer $X\mathrm{ThB}{\mathrm{r}}_{6}$ ($X=\mathrm{Ca}$, Sr, Ba) with ${C}_{2v}$ symmetry, while ${D}_{2}$ symmetry enforced in-plane PST is identified in $\mathrm{Au}{\mathrm{O}}_{2}\mathrm{Br}$ and $\mathrm{Cu}{\mathrm{O}}_{2}\mathrm{F}$ monolayers. This work not only expands the theoretical framework of effective NTSC, enabling its implementation in experimentally prepared quantum wells, but it also introduces a feasible route to achieve intrinsic in-plane PST in 2D stoichiometric compounds for device miniaturization.
Authors
- Xiaoming Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0756-9526)
- Mingwen Zhao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7583-9682)
- Xiaojun Shi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0645-2377)
Institutions
- Shandong University (CN)
- Ocean University of China (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Physical review. B./Physical review. B
- Published
- 2025-08-26
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1103/jsww-v4y9
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Topological Materials and Phenomena
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 1.25
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China