Anomalous Josephson current in superconducting topological insulator

Abstract

We investigate the effect of helical Majorana fermions at the surface of superconducting topological insulators (STI) on the Josephson current by referring to possible pairing states of Cu-doped Bi2Se3. The surface state in the present STI has a spin helicity because the directions of spin and momentum are locked to each other. The Josephson current-phase relation in an STI/s-wave superconductor junction shows robust sin(2{\phi}) owing to mirror symmetry, where \phi denotes the macroscopic phase difference between the two superconductors. In contrast, the maximum Josephson current in an STI/STI junction exhibits a nonmonotonic temperature dependence depending on the relative spin helicity of the two surface states. Detecting these features qualifies as distinct experimental evidence for the identification of the helical Majorana fermion in STIs.