PhD Studentship: Detecting Signatures of Majorana Bound States in Proximitized Magnetic Topological Insulators

Project title: Detecting Signatures of Majorana Bound States in Proximitized Magnetic Topological Insulators

Supervisor: Malcolm Connolly – m.connolly@imperial.ac.uk

Understanding how electrons behave in nanostructured materials has revolutionised our ability to engineer quantum devices and laid the foundations for a wide range of solid-state quantum technologies. This experimental PhD project involves studying a new class of quantum device whose electronic properties are strictly governed by bandstructure topology. Electrons in these topological materials can only move along surfaces and edges, where they avoid bulk noise and disorder, potentially improving device performance. 

The specific aim of this project is to detect signatures of Majorana bound states (MBS) – a special type of delocalised electron needed for high-performance topological qubits - in proximitized magnetically-doped topological insulator nanoribbons [1]. Signatures of MBS in these devices have been detected recently [2] and our lab at Imperial is equipped with a suite of low-temperature techniques to verify these observations. We will primarily use scanning probe microscopy to directly image MBS formation and circuit quantum electrodynamics to detect MBSs spectroscopically when embedded in superconducting qubits [3]. 

The research will be carried out in the Experimental Solid State (EXSS) physics group at Imperial College London as part of the QuantERA project MAGMA (see https://magma.tmqs.lu/ for further details).

[1] Burke et al., arXiv:2302.10982 (2023).

[2] Atanov et al., arXiv:2302.06823 (2023).

[3] Schmitt et al., Nano Lett. 22(7) (2022).

Location: Imperial College, South Kensington campus, London

To find out more about research at Imperial College London in this area, go to: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/experimental-solid-state/postgraduate/

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