Proposal for Majorana Modes without a Magnetic Field in a semiconductor-superconductor sandwich structures

Abstract: We propose a planar Josephson junction setup to host Majorana modes where the semiconductor is sandwiched between superconductors on both surfaces. While the studied configuration is related to both devices proposed for use with topological insulators as well as other proposals for Majorana modes without applied magnetic fields, we find that placing the superconductor on both surfaces allows us to replace the topological insulator by a wider variety of spin-orbit coupled semiconductors. Application of an electric field in the junction together with appropriate superconducting phase differences allows different Fermi surfaces to be subject to different phase differences. We find that these conditions can drive the system into a class-D topological superconductor with a pair of Majorana modes at the two ends of the junction. Additionally, class-DIII topological superconductors with helical Majorana modes also occur in other parts of the phase diagram. We simulate our setup on HgTe near the valence band edge described by the well-known 8-band Kane model with realistic parameters and find phase diagram can be achieved. The topological gap can remain comparable to the bulk superconducting gap throughout the fermi surface.