From: Alexey Soluyanov <soluyanov@itp.phys.ethz.ch>

Subject: Seminar on Tuesday, November 6

Date: November 5, 2012 2:52:51 PM GMT+01:00

To: itp-Schulthess@phys.ethz.ch, itp-sigrist@phys.ethz.ch, itp-blatter@phys.ethz.ch, itp-renner@phys.ethz.ch, itp-christandl@phys.ethz.ch, itp-spaldin@phys.ethz.ch, itp-troyer@phys.ethz.ch

There will be a seminar tomorrow (details below), November 6 at 10:30 am in HIT K 52.(ETH Science City)

Everyone is invited.

Speaker: Roman M. Lutchyn (Microsoft Station Q)

Title: Majorana fermions in semiconductor/superconductor heterostructures

Abstract:
The exploration of topological phases of matter is one of the main challenges in condensed matter physics. Among the exciting recent developments in this direction are the discoveries of the new phases of matter with many intriguing properties such as topological insulators and superconductors. In my talk, I will focus on topological superconductors and  discuss how to realize spinless p-wave superconductivity in the laboratory by exploiting the properties of an interface between a semiconductor and an s-wave superconductor. I will show that a topological superconducting state emerging in such a system supports Majorana zero-energy modes. The unique properties of Majoranas can be exploited for implementing fault-tolerant quantum computation schemes that are inherently decoherence-free.