Jinfeng Jia is a chair professor and the vice dean of the school of physics and astronomy, Shang-hai Jiao Tong University. He graduated from Peking University in 1987. He received his Ph.D in condensed matter physics from the same university in 1992. From 1995 to 1996, he worked as a JSPS post-doc at Institute for Materials Research, Tohoku University, Japan. From 1996 to 2001, he worked as an associated professor at Department of Physics, Peking University. During the time, he worked as a visiting scientist in USA for 3 years. In 2001, he received the “100 Talents Project” of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and became a professor at Institute of Physics, CAS. From 2006 to 2009, he worked as a professor at Department of Physics, Tsinghua Univer-sity. In 2009, he became a Cheung Kong Professor at Dept. of Physics, Shanghai Jiaotong Uni-versity. He is a condensed matter experimenter. His main research interests include topological supercon-ductors and new quantum materials, quantum phenomenon in low-dimensional nano-structures, thin film growth by molecular beam epitaxy. He authored more than 260 SCI papers, including 4 in Science, 3 in Nature Phys., 2 in Nature Materials, 2 in PNAS, 6 in Adv. Mater., 3 in Nano Let-ters, 23 in Physical Review Letters, with a citation of more than 13000 times. He was selected as a highly cited researcher by Clarivate Analytics in 2018 and 2019. He received a number of recognitions, including the Scientific and Technological Progress Award of Chinese State Educa-tion Commission (first class, 1997), Chinese National Natural Science Funds for Distinguished Young Scholar (2003), Prize for Advancement in Science and Technology of Beijing (first class, 2003), National Prize for Advancement in Natural Science (second class, 2004), Outstanding Science and Technology Achievement Prize of CAS (2005), National Prize for Advancement in Natural Science (second class, 2011), Group Award for Outstanding Science and Technology Achievement from Qiu Shi Science & Technologies Foundation of Hong Kong, 2011 and Achievement in Asia Award (AAA) (Robert T. Poe Prize) by the International Organization of Chinese Physicists and Astronomers (OCPA, 2013), Prize for Advancement in Natural Science of Chinese Ministry of Education (First class, 2016) and the Special Prize for Advancement in Natural Science of Chinese Ministry of Education (2017), National Prize for Advancement in Natural Science (second class, 2019).
Topological superconductors attract lots of attentions recently, since they are predicted to host Ma-jorana zero mode (MZM), who behaves like Majorana fermion and can be used in fault-tolerant quantum computation relying on their non-Abelian braiding statistics. Currently, most topological superconductors are artificially engineered based on a normal superconductor and the exotic prop-erties of the electronic surface states of a topological insulator. As predicted, MZM in the vortex of topological superconductor appears as a zero energy mode with a cone like spatial distribution. Al-so, MZM can induce spin selective Andreev reflection (SSAR), a novel magnetic property which can be used to detect the MZMs. Here, I will show you that the Bi2Te3/NbSe2 hetero-structure is an ideal artificial topological su-perconductor and all the three features are observed for the MZMs inside the vortices on the Bi2Te3/NbSe2. Especially, by using spin-polarized scanning tunnel-ing microscopy/spectroscopy (STM/STS), we observed the spin dependent tunneling effect, which is a direct evidence for the SSAR from MZMs, and fully supported by theoretical analyses. More importantly, all evidences are self-consistent. Recently, the segmented Fermi surface induced by the Cooper pair momentum was observed in a Bi2Te3/NbSe2 sys-tem. Finally, the strong proximity effect was found in SnTe-Pb heterostructure. The bulk pairing gap and multiple in-gap states induced by topological surface states can be clearly distinguished. The superconductivity of SnTe is consistent with a new type of topological superconductors under the protection of lattice symmetries. Under lattice-symmetry protection, the superconducting SnTe is predicted to possess multiple MZMs in a single vortex. This system provides a platform to study the coupling of multiple MZMs without the need of real space movement of a vortex.
References:
[1] Mei-Xiao Wang, et al., Science 336, 52-55 (2012)
[2] J.P. Xu, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 217001 (2014)
[3] J.P. Xu, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 017001 (2015)
[4] H.H. Sun, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 257003 (2016)
[5] H.H. Sun, Jin-Feng Jia, NPJ Quan. Mater. 2, 34 (2017)
[6] Z. Zhu, et al., Science 374, 1381 (2021)
[7] H. Yang, et al., Adv. Mater. 31, 1905582 (2019)
[8] H. Yang, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 136802 (2020)