Post-publication review of 'Flux-tuned topological superconductivity in full-shell nanowires' Vaitiekenas et al. Science 2020

Sergey Frolov, Vincent Mourik
2022 Zenodo  
In March 2020 a research group at Microsoft / University of Copenhagen published a paper in Science titled "Flux-induced topological superconductivity in full-shell nanowires" https://science.sciencemag.org/content/367/6485/eaav3392 (in what follows Science-2020). The authors claimed (both through explicit statements in the text and through their choice of what data to present) that some nanowires they have studied exhibit robust zero-bias peaks (i.e. peaks in conductance at zero voltage)
more » ... ding with the odd lobes of a multi-lobed phenomenon known as the Little-Parks Oscillation. They interpret this as evidence for topological superconductivity, i.e. Majorana particles. In October 2020 the authors shared additional data from those experiments on Zenodo http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4263106. Having carefully studied the paper, as well as additional data, we conclude that data in a key figure, Figure 2, are not representative of the full experimental data obtained. Contradictions are found not only in analogous data from other devices, but even over larger parameter ranges from the same device. Contrary to statements in the text, we find evidence that the authors' supposedly robust zero-bias peaks fail to coincide consistently with the odd lobes of the Little-Parks Oscillations. We also find evidence that some supposed zero-bias peaks are split peaks, and that zero-bias peaks are gate-dependent, and not robust throughout the tunneling regime. Again these findings are contrary to explicit statements in the paper. Left: Paper figure in the Research Article Summary shows a coincidence of a zero-bias peak and Little-Parks oscillations, but additional data contain examples where this coincidence is not present. With respect to data as shown in a key figure, Figure 2, we found multiple statements throughout the paper to be inaccurate or misleading as applied to the full data available. These statements, identified below, concern both the des [...]
doi:10.5281/zenodo.6344447 fatcat:2ihakyw3i5gpzahxejaxzaof4y