On-demand large conductance in trivial zero-bias tunneling peaks in Majorana nanowires

Motivated by recent experiments that report the almost-generic large-conductance peaks without very extensive fine-tuning, we propose an alternative mechanism through direct theoretical simulations that can explain the large zero-bias conductance peaks being generated on-demand in the nontopological regime in Majorana nanowires by satisfying the following three sufficient conditions: (i) strong potential disorder in the bulk of the nanowire, suppressing the topological regime; (ii) strong suppression of the disorder near the nanowire ends connecting to the tunneling leads, perhaps because of screening by the metallic leads and gates; and (iii) low tunnel barrier strength leading to large tunneling amplitude. The third condition is typically achieved experimentally by fine-tuning the tunnel barrier and the first condition is generic in all existing nanowires by virtue of considerable sample disorder induced by unintentional random quenched charged impurities. The second condition is likely to apply to many samples since the disorder potential would be typically screened more strongly at the wire ends because of the large metallic tunnel pads used experimentally. We show that the resultant tunneling conductance manifests large trivial zero-bias peaks almost on demand, and such peaks could be similar to 2e(2)/h, when appropriately fine-tuned by the tunnel barrier strength and the temperature, as reported experimentally. Our work not only solves the mystery in recent experiments that the observations of the large zero-bias conductance peaks are generic by proposing a theoretically possible mechanism but also explains why these hypothesized conditions are naturally satisfied in experiments.

Automated summary

Motivated by recent experiments, this study proposes an alternative mechanism through theoretical simulations to explain the generation of large zero-bias conductance peaks in Majorana nanowires. The mechanism includes three conditions: strong potential disorder in the nanowire bulk, suppression of disorder near the wire ends, and low tunnel barrier strength. These conditions are often satisfied in experiments, thereby explaining the observed large zero-bias conductance peaks.