Abstract
As a half-metal is spin polarized at its Fermi level by definition, it was conventionally thought to have little proximity effect to an -wave superconductor. Here we show that with interface spin-orbit coupling superconductivity without spin degeneracy is induced on the half-metal, and we give an estimate of its bulk energy gap. Therefore, a single-band half-metal can give us a topological superconductor with a single chiral Majorana edge state. Our band calculation shows that two atomic layers of VTe or CrO is a single-band half-metal for a wide range (0.1 eV) of Fermi energy and thus is a suitable candidate material.
- Received 19 July 2011
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.84.060510
©2011 American Physical Society