Recent Advances in Nanowires and Superconductors (Second Edition)

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue is a continuation of a previous Special Issue, “Recent Advances in Nanowires and Superconductors”.

Advancements in the theoretical and experimental understanding of quantum wires (QWs), ranging from semiconductors and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) to topological insulators (TIs), have led to the proposal and observation of a plethora of novel physical phenomena. In view of this rich and exciting scenario, it is compelling to assess where the cutting edge of research in this field lies. This is the goal of this Special Issue.

Very recently, the formation of elusive Wigner molecules has been proven in suspended CNT QWs, and it has finally been theoretically understood how such a phenomenon implies a quantum phase transition at zero temperature. At finite temperature, one of the most natural theoretical models to describe this molecule is the spin-incoherent Luttinger liquid, whose existence has been shown in trapped 1D cold atoms yet remains to be confirmed in condensed matter. For weaker interactions, one method lies in harvesting non-linear effects, which may even lead to unconventional nanophotonic devices.

Even in a weakly interacting context, interesting physics may arise in wires made of non-trivial materials such as TIs and in spin–orbit coupled insulators. Such systems are interesting on their own, and even more so when proximized with superconductors. Indeed, Majorana and parafermionic modes may arise, which can be exploited to implement topologically protected quantum computation.

Connecting and possibly stacking several such QWs is a required goal in order to control and exploit the properties of Majorana and parafermionic modes, to build individual quantum gates and, eventually, to scale up towards complex quantum circuits. Beyond their usefulness in topological quantum computation, superlattices of QWs show novel collective phenomena, leading, for instance, to new optical transitions and vibrational properties. In addition, the procedure of “wire construction” has been theoretically exploited to tackle the study of exotic states of matter, such as the Fractional Quantum Hall Effect.

We hope that this Special Issue will contribute to the cross-fertilization of the different subfields mentioned above.

Dr. Fabio Cavaliere
Guest Editor

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• quantum wires
• superconductors
• carbon nanotubes
• topological insulators
• spin–orbit
• Majorana fermions
• parafermions
• superlattices
• topologically protected quantum computation
• Luttinger liquids

• Recent Advances in Nanowires and Superconductors in Nanomaterials (4 articles)