On October 13, npj Computational Materials published online the research results of Professor Xu Gang's team from Wuhan National High Magnetic Field Center. The paper is entitled "Topological superconductor candidates PdBi2Te4 and PdBi2Te5 from a generic ab initio strategy." Doctoral students Luo Aiyun, Li Ying and master's student Qin Yi are the co-first authors of the paper, Professor Xu Gang is the corresponding author of the paper, doctoral students Hu Jingnan, Wang Xiaoxu, lecturer Zou Jinyu and assistant professor Lian Biao of Princeton University jointly completed the relevant work.
Fig. 1: The strategy to design idea superconducting topological metal (SCTM) by intercalating the superconductor (SC) units into the topological insulator (TI).
Abstract
Superconducting topological metals (SCTMs) have recently emerged as a promising platform of topological superconductivity (TSC) and Majorana zero modes for quantum computation. Despite their importance in both fundamental research and applications, SCTMs are very rare in nature. Here, we propose a strategy to design SCTMs by intercalating the superconducting units into the topological insulators. A program that characterizes the superconducting BdG Chern number of 2D BdG Hamiltonian from ab initio calculations is also developed. Following this strategy, PdBi2Te5 and PdBi2Te4 are found to be experimentally synthesizable and ideal SCTMs. Chiral TSC could be realized in such SCTMs by incorporating topological surface states with Zeeman effect, which can be realized by an external magnetic field or in proximity to ferromagnetic insulator. Our strategy provides a new method for identifying the SCTMs and TSC candidates, and the program makes it possible to design and modulate the TSC candidates from ab initio calculations.
Who did the research?
G.X. conceived and designed the project. A.L., Y.L., and Y.Q. contributed to the work equally. A.L., Y.L., Y.Q., J.H., and X.W. performed all the DFT calculations. G.X., B.L., J.Z., and A.L. did the theoretical analysis. All authors contributed to the manuscript writing.
Funding
This work is supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFA0307000), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (11874022). B.L. is supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the National Science Foundation through Princeton University’s Materials Research Science and Engineering Center DMR-2011750, and the National Science Foundation under award DMR-2141966.
Link: Topological superconductor candidates PdBi2Te4 and PdBi2Te5 from a generic ab initio strategy | npj Computational Materials (nature.com)
