Controversy over large proximity induced s wave like pairing from a d wave superconductor

Abstract

Proximity effect is used to generate effective topological superconductor by placing strong spin orbit interacting metals with superconducting materials, aiming to produce Majorana zero modes useful for topologically protected quantum computations. In recent experiments high $T_c$ material $\text{Bi}_2\text{Sr}_2\text{CaCu}_2\text{O}_{8+\delta}$ is put in contact with a few quintuple layer thick $\text{Bi}_2\text{Se}_3$, and conflicting experimental results are reported. We use standard mean field approach to study this heterostructure, and find it is unlikely to have large proximity induced superconducting gap. The claimed observed s-wave gap might not be purely superconducting coherence gap despite its seemingly correct temperature dependence. Further study on the proximity induced bulk coherence gap and the band structure at the interface should shed light on this issue.