Majorana zero modes in superconductor-magnet heterostructures with d-wave order

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Authors: Bastien Fajardo, T. Pereg-Barnea, Arun Paramekanti, Kartiek Agarwal
Cited by: 0

Abstract

Magnetic skyrmions in proximity to superconductors offer a route to engineering topological superconductivity due to the synthetic spin-orbit coupling engendered by the spin twist of the skyrmion texture. Previous theoretical works show that this leads to Majorana zero modes (MZMs) in skyrmion-vortex pairs for s-wave superconductors. Here we investigate this mechanism in fully gapped d+is and d+id superconductors. We find the surprising result that while stable MZMs are found in large parts of the phase diagram, strongly enhanced d-wave pairing or stronger skyrmion-induced spin twisting can in fact destroy topology unlike in s-wave superconductors. This effect can be understood from the non-trivial spatial structure of the d-wave pairing, and mixing of odd and even angular-momentum pairing channels in a rotated frame which untwists the skyrmion texture. Our results inform the feasibility of realizing MZMs with unconventional superconductors in such heterostructures.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Topological Materials and Phenomena Physics of Superconductivity and Magnetism Magnetic properties of thin films

Publication details

Journal / source
arXiv (Cornell University)
Publication date
9 February 2026
Language
EN
Document type
Preprint