Speaker:
Marcel Franz, UBC
Event Date and Time:
Thu, 2015-01-22 15:30 - 16:30
Local Contact:
Marcel Franz
Intended Audience:
Undergraduate
In 1937 Italian physicist Ettore Majorana predicted the existence of
strange fermionic particles that are their own antiparticles. It is
possible that neutrinos realize such Majorana fermions but 75 years
after the historical prediction the evidence remains inconclusive. In
this talk I will describe recent efforts to engineer and observe
Majorana fermions in solid state systems which appear to be very close
to fruition. Majorana fermions have been theoretically predicted to
occur in a class of systems called topological superconductors.
Although such systems do not seem to exist in nature they can be
engineered by combining other ingredients such as the ordinary
superconductors and semiconductors with strong spin-orbit coupling or
topological insulators. Signatures consistent with Majorana fermions
have already been reported in such hybrid devices and the race is on
for the first conclusive experimental observation. I will explain the
intriguing physics behind these solid-state realizations of Majorana
fermions and discuss their significance for future technologies.