Majorana Signature of Kitaev Spin Liquid in Planar Tunneling Geometry

ORAL

Abstract

We propose a planar tunneling setup to probe vacancy-bound Majorana modes in the chiral Kitaev spin liquid. In this geometry, the inelastic tunneling conductance can be expressed directly in terms of real-space spin correlations, establishing a link between measurable spectra and the underlying fractionalized excitations. We show that magnetic vacancies host localized Majorana states that generate sharp near-zero-bias features, well separated from the continuum of bulk spin excitations. Compared to local STM measurements, the planar configuration naturally enhances the signal by coherently summing over multiple vacancies, reducing spatial resolution requirements. Our results demonstrate a realistic and scalable route to detect Majorana excitations in Kitaev materials.

*We aknowledge the support by U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences under Award No. DE-SC0018056.

Presenters

  • Weiyao Li

    • University of Minnesota

Authors

  • Weiyao Li

    • University of Minnesota
  • Vitor Dantas Meireles

    • University of Minnesota
  • Wen-Han Kao

    • University of Wisconsin-Madison
    • University of Wisconsin-Maddison
  • Natalia B Perkins

    • University of Minnesota