Helical Hinge Majorana Modes in Iron-Based Superconductors.

Phys Rev Lett

Condensed Matter Theory Center and Joint Quantum Institute, Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742-4111, USA.

Published: May 2019

Motivated by recent experiments on FeTe_{1-x}Se_{x}, we construct an explicit minimal model of an iron-based superconductor with band inversion at the Z point and nontopological bulk s_{±} pairing. While there has been considerable interest in Majorana zero modes localized at vortices in such systems, we find that our model-without any vortices-intrinsically supports 1D helical Majorana modes localized at the hinges between (001) and (100) or (010) surfaces, suggesting that this is a viable platform for observing "higher-order" topological superconductivity. We provide a general theory for these hinge modes and discuss their stability and experimental manifestation. Our work indicates the possible experimental observability of hinge Majorana modes in iron-based topological superconductors.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.187001DOI Listing

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