Contributor info: Dr Antonio Manesco

Isidora Araya Day, Kostas Vilkelis, Antonio L. R. Manesco, Ahmet Mert Bozkurt, Valla Fatemi, Anton R. Akhmerov

SciPost Phys. 18, 098 (2025) · published 18 March 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

We demonstrate that Andreev modes that propagate along a transparent Josephson junction have a perfect transmission at the point where three junctions meet. The chirality and the number of quantized transmission channels is determined by the topology of the Fermi surface and the vorticity of the superconducting phase differences at the trijunction. We explain this chiral adiabatic transmission (CAT) as a consequence of the adiabatic evolution of the scattering modes both in momentum and real space. The dispersion relation of the junction then separates the scattering trajectories by introducing inaccesible regions of phase space. We expect that CAT is observable in nonlocal conductance and thermal transport measurements. Furthermore, because it does not rely on particle-hole symmetry, CAT is also possible to observe directly in metamaterials.

Juan Daniel Torres Luna, Kostas Vilkelis, Antonio L. R. Manesco

SciPost Phys. 18, 062 (2025) · published 21 February 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

Despite many reports of valley-related phenomena in graphene and its multilayers, current transport experiments cannot probe valley phenomena without the application of external fields. Here we propose a gate-defined valley splitter as a direct transport probe for valley phenomenon in graphene multilayers. First, we show how the device works, its magnetotransport response, and its robustness against fabrication errors. Secondly, we present two applications for valley splitters: (i) resonant tunneling of quantum dots probed by a valley splitter shows the valley polarization of dot levels; (ii) a combination of two valley splitters resolves the nature of order parameters in mesoscopic samples.

Kostas Vilkelis, Antonio Manesco, Juan Daniel Torres Luna, Sebastian Miles, Michael Wimmer, Anton Akhmerov

SciPost Phys. 16, 135 (2024) · published 27 May 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

We propose a practical implementation of a universal quantum computer that uses local fermionic modes (LFM) rather than qubits. The device consists of quantum dots tunnel-coupled by a hybrid superconducting island and a tunable capacitive coupling between the dots. We show that coherent control of Cooper pair splitting, elastic cotunneling, and Coulomb interactions implements the universal set of quantum gates defined by Bravyi and Kitaev [Ann. Phys. 298, 210 (2002)]. Due to the similarity with charge qubits, we expect charge noise to be the main source of decoherence. For this reason, we also consider an alternative design where the quantum dots have tunable coupling to the superconductor. In this second device design, we show that there is a sweet spot for which the local fermionic modes are charge neutral, making the device insensitive to charge noise effects. Finally, we compare both designs and their experimental limitations and suggest future efforts to overcome them.

Antonio L. R. Manesco, Artem Pulkin

SciPost Phys. Core 6, 036 (2023) · published 1 May 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

We theoretically predict spatial separation of spin-polarized ballistic currents in transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) due to trigonal warping. We quantify the effect in terms of spin polarization of charge carrier currents in a prototypical 3-terminal ballistic device where spin-up and spin-down charge carriers are collected by different leads. We show that the magnitude of the current spin polarization depends strongly on the charge carrier energy and the direction with respect to crystallographic orientations in the device. We study the (negative) effect of lattice imperfections and disorder on the observed spin polarization. Our investigation provides an avenue towards observing spin discrimination in a defect-free time reversal-invariant material.

Antonio L. R. Manesco, Ian Matthias Flór, Chun-Xiao Liu, Anton R. Akhmerov

SciPost Phys. Core 5, 045 (2022) · published 27 September 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

We simulate a hybrid superconductor-graphene device in the quantum Hall regime to identify the origin of downstream resistance oscillations in a recent experiment [Zhao et. al. Nature Physics 16, (2020)]. In addition to the previously studied Mach-Zehnder interference between the valley-polarized edge states, we consider disorder-induced scattering, and the previously overlooked appearance of the counter-propagating states generated by the interface density mismatch. Comparing our results with the experiment, we conclude that the observed oscillations are induced by the interfacial disorder, and that lattice-matched superconductors are necessary to observe the alternative ballistic effects.