Flux-induced Majorana modes in full-shell nanowires

Abstract

We demonstrate a novel means of creating Majorana zero modes using magnetic flux applied to a full superconducting shell surrounding a semiconducting nanowire core, unifying approaches based on proximitized nanowires and vortices in topological superconductors. In the destructive Little-Parks regime, reentrant regions of superconductivity are associated with integer number of phase windings in the shell. Tunneling into the core reveals a hard induced gap near zero applied flux, corresponding to zero phase winding, and a gapped region with a discrete zero-energy state for flux around {\Phi}_0 = h/2e, corresponding to 2{\pi} phase winding. Coulomb peak spacing in full-shell islands around one applied flux shows exponentially decreasing deviation from 1e periodicity with device length, consistent with the picture of Majorana modes located at the ends of the wire.