Chiral Superconductivity in Thin Films of doped Bi$_2$Se$_3$

Abstract

Recent experimental evidences point to rotation symmetry breaking superconductivity in doped Bi$_2$Se$_3$, where the relevant order parameter belongs to a two-component odd-parity representation $E_u$ of the crystal point group. The $E_u$ channel admits two possible phases, the chiral phase, that breaks time-reversal symmetry, and nematic phase, that well explains the reported rotation symmetry breaking. In weakly anisotropic three-dimensional systems the nematic phase is the stable one. We study the stability of the nematic phase versus the chiral phase as a function of the anisotropy of the system and the thickness of the sample and show that in the strongly anisotropic case or in thin slabs the chiral phases is favoured. For the extreme 2D limit composed by a single layer of Bi$_2$Se$_3$ the system hosts two chiral Majorana modes flowing at the boundary of the system.

6 pages, 3 figures