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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Creating and detecting poor man's Majorana bound states in interacting quantum dots

Athanasios Tsintzis1, Rubén Seoane Souto1,2, and Martin Leijnse1,2

  • 1Division of Solid State Physics and NanoLund, Lund University, S-221 00 Lund, Sweden
  • 2Center for Quantum Devices, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark

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Phys. Rev. B 106, L201404 – Published 17 November, 2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.106.L201404

Abstract

We propose and theoretically investigate an alternative way to create the poor man's Majorana bound states (MBSs) introduced in Phys. Rev. B 86, 134528 (2012). Our proposal is based on two quantum dots (QDs) with strong electron-electron interactions that couple via a central QD with proximity-induced superconductivity. In the presence of spin-orbit coupling and a magnetic field, gate control of all three QDs allows tuning the system into sweet spots with one MBS localized on each outer dot. We quantify the quality of these MBSs and show how it depends on the Zeeman energy and interaction strength. We also show how nonlocal transport spectroscopy can be used to identify sweet spots with high MBS quality. Our results provide a path for investigating MBS physics in a setting that is free of many of the doubts and uncertainties that plague other platforms.

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Phys. Rev. B 106, L201404– Published 17 November, 2022
  • Received 15 July 2022
  • Revised 29 September 2022
  • Accepted 27 October 2022
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