Microscopic simulation of superconductor/topological insulator proximity structures

作者:Lababidi Mahmoud*; Zhao Erhai
来源:Physical Review B, 2011, 83(18): 184511.
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevB.83.184511

摘要

We present microscopic, self-consistent calculations of the superconducting order parameter and pairing correlations near the interface of an s-wave superconductor and a three-dimensional topological insulator with spin-orbit coupling. We discuss the suppression of the order parameter by the topological insulator and show that the equal-time pair correlation functions in the triplet channel, induced by spin-flip scattering at the interface, are of p(x) +/- ip(y) symmetry. We verify that the spectrum at subgap energies is well described by the Fu-Kane model. The subgap modes are viewed as interface states with spectral weight penetrating well into the superconductor. We extract the phenomenological parameters of the Fu-Kane model from microscopic calculations, and find they are strongly renormalized from the bulk material parameters. This is consistent with previous results of Stanescu et al. for a lattice model using perturbation theory in the tunneling limit.

  • 出版日期2011-5-18

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