Majorana States in Proximitized Planar Josephson Junctions

We theoretically investigate the emergence of topological superconductivity and Majorana states (MSs) in proximitized planar Josephson junctions (JJs) with different crystallographic orientations and in the presence of an in-plane magnetic field and both Rashba and Dresselhaus spin–orbit interactions. We demonstrate that two distinct types of MSs can arise upon entering the topological superconducting phase. In the first case, termed end-like MSs, the Majorana quasiparticles are predominantly localized within the normal region at opposite ends of the junction. In contrast, edge-like MSs extend along the system’s opposite edges, perpendicular to the junction channel. We show that transitions between end-like and edge-like MSs can be induced by tuning the magnetic-field strength and/or the superconducting phase difference across the junction. We further investigate the influence of electrostatic disorder on the localization properties of the MSs and on the robustness of the topological gap. In addition, we show that structural and magnetic mirror symmetries generate distinct topological superconducting classes capable of supporting multiple MSs. Finally, we show that the magnetocurrent–phase relation provides an experimentally accessible probe of topological gap closings and the reconstruction of the topological phase diagram.