Conductance of a finite Kitaev chain

R. J. Doornenbal*, G. Skantzaris, H. T. C. Stoof

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

We present a stochastic formulation of the Kadanoff-Baym or Keldysh theory to calculate the conductance of a finite Kitaev chain coupled to two electron reservoirs. We study the dependence of the conductance on the number of sites in the chain and find that only for sufficiently long chains and in the regime that the chain is a topological superconductor the conductance at both ends tends to the universal value 2e(2)/h, as expected on the basis of the contact resistance of a single conducting channel provided by the Majorana zero mode. In this topologically nontrivial case we find an exponential decay of the current inside the chain and a simple analytical expression for the decay length. Finally, we also study the differential conductance at nonzero bias and the full current-voltage curves. We find a nonmonotonic behavior of the maximal current through the Kitaev chain as a function of the coupling strength with the reservoirs.

Original languageEnglish
Article number045419
Number of pages9
JournalPhysical review. B, Condensed matter and materials physics
Volume91
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 13 Jan 2015

Keywords

  • MAJORANA FERMIONS
  • SUPERCONDUCTOR

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