Superconductivity and Ferromagnetism in Oxide Interface Structures: Possibility of Finite Momentum Pairing

We introduce a model to explain the observed ferromagnetism and superconductivity in LAO/STO oxide interface structures. Due to the polar catastrophe mechanism, 1/2 charge per unit cell is transferred to the interface layer. We argue that this charge localizes and orders ferromagnetically via exchange with the conduction electrons. Ordinarily this ferromagnetism would destroy superconductivity, but due to strong spin-orbit coupling near the interface, the magnetism and superconductivity can coexist by forming an FFLO-type condensate of Cooper pairs at finite momentum, which is surprisingly robust in the presence of strong disorder.Comment: 6 pages of Supplementary materials added containing details of calculation and further discussion of the FFLO state with disorder, references added, final version as publishe

Electron Teleportation in Multi-Terminal Majorana Islands: Statistical Transmutation and Fractional Quantum Conductance

We study a topological superconductor island with spatially separated Majorana modes coupled to multiple normal metal leads by single electron tunneling in the Coulomb blockade regime. We show that low-temperature transport in such Majorana island is carried by an emergent charge-$e$ boson composed of a Majorana mode and an electron from the leads. This transmutation from Fermi to Bose statistics has remarkable consequences. For noninteracting leads, the system flows to a non-Fermi liquid fixed point, which is stable against tunnel couplings anisotropy or detuning away from the charge-degeneracy point. As a result, the system exhibits a universal conductance at zero temperature, which is a fraction of the conductance quantum, and low-temperature corrections with a universal power-law exponent. In addition, we consider Majorana islands connected to interacting one-dimensional leads, and find different stable fixed points near and far from the charge-degeneracy point.Comment: 10+ pages, 5 figure

Giant chirality-induced spin-selectivity of polarons

The chirality-induced spin selectivity (CISS) effect gives rise to strongly spin-dependent transport through many organic molecules and structures. Its discovery raises fascinating fundamental questions as well as the prospect of possible applications. The basic phenomenology, a strongly asymmetric magnetoresistance despite the absence of magnetism, is now understood to result from the combination of spin-orbit coupling and chiral geometry. However, experimental signatures of electronic helicity were observed at room temperature, i.e., at an energy scale that exceeds the typical spin-orbit coupling in organic systems by several orders of magnitude. This work shows that a new energy scale for CISS emerges for currents carried by polarons, i.e., in the presence of strong electron-phonon coupling. In particular, we found that polaron fluctuations play a crucial role in the two manifestations of CISS in transport measurements -- the spin-dependent transmission probability through the system and asymmetric magnetoresistance

Revealing topological superconductivity in extended quantum spin Hall Josephson junctions

Quantum spin Hall–superconductor hybrids are promising sources of topological superconductivity and Majorana modes, particularly given recent progress on HgTe and InAs/GaSb. We propose a new method of revealing topological superconductivity in extended quantum spin Hall Josephson junctions supporting “fractional Josephson currents.” Specifically, we show that as one threads magnetic flux between the superconductors, the critical current traces an interference pattern featuring sharp fingerprints of topological superconductivity—even when noise spoils parity conservation