Proposal for realizing Majorana fermions in chains of magnetic atoms on a superconductor

Abstract

We propose an easy-to-build easy-to-detect scheme for realizing Majorana fermions at the ends of a chain of magnetic atoms on the surface of a superconductor. Model calculations show that such chains can be easily tuned between trivial and topological ground states. In the latter, spatially resolved spectroscopy can be used to probe the Majorana fermion end states. Decoupled Majorana bound states can form even in short magnetic chains consisting of only tens of atoms. We propose scanning tunneling microscopy as the ideal technique to fabricate such systems and to probe their topological properties.