Ballistic Majorana nanowire devices

Ballistic Majorana nanowire devices

Gül, Önder (TU Delft QRD/Kouwenhoven Lab)

Kouwenhoven, Leo P. (promotor)
Bakkers, E.P.A.M. (promotor)

Delft University of Technology

2017-10-18

The dissertation reports a series of electron transport experiments on semiconductor nanowires towards realizing the hypothesized topological quantum computation. A topological quantum computer manipulates information that is stored nonlocally in the topology of a physical system. Such an operation possesses advantages over the current quantum computation platforms due to its robustness against local sources of decoherence, offering a natural fault-tolerance. Among various candidate platforms to realize topological quantum computation, semiconductor nanowires with strong spin-orbit coupling attached to conventional superconductors have emerged as a prime contender. The predicted topological properties of such a system is associated with the emergence of Majorana modes.

The presence of disorder has been considered to be the main obstacle towards the realization of a topological quantum computer based on semiconductor nanowires. Disorder can mimic the experimentally measurable properties of Majoranas, or can render the promise of fault-tolerance ineffective. The experiments in the dissertation aim for eliminating the disorder on the surface of the nanowire, and in the interface between the nanowire and the superconductor. Following a series of investigations demonstrating materials improvements, ballistic Majorana nanowire devices are realized.

topological states
topological quantum computation
topological superconductivity
Majorana
semiconductor nanowire
InSb

https://doi.org/10.4233/uuid:5f84f8a9-b4e7-4248-a9cb-be9bde19b69d

987-90-8593-313-7

Casimir PhD Series, Delft-Leiden 2017-29

Institutional Repository

doctoral thesis

© 2017 Önder Gül