Topological superconductivity in monolayer Td−MoTe2

Abstract

Topological superconductivity has attracted significant attention due to its potential applications in quantum computation, but its experimental realization remains challenging. Recently, monolayer Td−MoTe2 was observed to exhibit gate tunable superconductivity, and its in-plane upper critical field exceeds the Pauli limit. Here, we show that an in-plane magnetic field beyond the Pauli limit can drive the superconducting monolayer Td−MoTe2 into a topological superconductor. The topological superconductivity arises from the interplay between the in-plane Zeeman coupling and the unique Ising plus in-plane spin-orbit coupling (SOC) in the monolayer Td−MoTe2. The Ising plus in-plane SOC plays the essential role to enable the effective px + ipy pairing. As the essential Ising plus in-plane SOC in the monolayer Td−MoTe2 is generated by an in-plane polar field, our proposal demonstrates that applying an in-plane magnetic field to a gate tunable 2D superconductor with an in-plane polar axis is a feasible way to realize topological superconductivity. Topological superconductivity is the holy grail for implementing fault-tolerant quantum computation. Here, the authors show that for a superconducting monolayer Td−MoTe2 characterized by the Ising plus in-plane spin-orbit coupling, applying an in-plane magnetic field can drive it to a topological superconductor.