No Arabic abstract
A novel topological insulator with tunable edge states, called quantum spin-quantum anomalous Hall (QSQAH) insulator, is predicted in a heterostructure of a hydrogenated Sb (SbH) monolayer on a LaFeO3 substrate by using ab initio methods. The substrate induces a drastic staggered exchange field in the SbH film, which plays an important role to generate the QSQAH effect. A topologically nontrivial band gap (up to 35 meV) is opened by Rashba spin-orbit coupling, which can be enlarged by strain and electric field. To understand the underlying physical mechanism of the QSQAH effect, a tight-binding model based on px and py orbitals is constructed. With the model, the exotic behaviors of the edge states in the heterostructure are investigated. Dissipationless chiral charge edge states related to one valley are found to emerge along the both sides of the sample, while low-dissipation spin edge states related to the other valley flow only along one side of the sample. These edge states can be tuned flexibly by polarization-sensitive photoluminescence controls and/or chemical edge modifications. Such flexible manipulations of the charge, spin, and valley degrees of freedom provide a promising route towards applications in electronics, spintronics, and valleytronics.
We propose a new topological quantum state of matter---the two-dimensional (2D) Weyl half semimetal (WHS), which features 2D Weyl points at Fermi level belonging to a single spin channel, such that the low-energy electrons are described by fully spin-polarized 2D Weyl fermions. We predict its realization in the ground state of monolayer PtCl$_3$. We show that the material is a half metal with an in-plane magnetization, and its Fermi surface consists of a pair of fully spin-polarized Weyl points protected by a mirror symmetry, which are robust against spin-orbit coupling. Remarkably, we show that the WHS state is a critical state at the topological phase transition between two quantum anomalous Hall insulator phases with opposite Chern numbers, such that a switching between quantum anomalous Hall states can be readily achieved by rotating the magnetization direction. Our findings demonstrate that WHS offers new opportunity to control the chiral edge channels, which will be useful for designing new topological electronic devices.
The quantum spin Hall insulator (QSHI) state has been demonstrated in two semiconductor systems - HgTe/CdTe quantum wells (QWs) and InAs/GaSb QW bilayers. Unlike the HgTe/CdTe QWs, the inverted band gap in InAs/GaSb QW bilayers does not open at the $Gamma$ point of the Brillouin zone, preventing the realization of massless Dirac fermions. Here, we propose a new class of semiconductor systems based on InAs/Ga(In)Sb multilayers, hosting a QSHI state, a graphene-like phase and a bilayer graphene analogue, depending on their layer thicknesses and geometry. The QSHI gap in the novel structures can reach up to 60 meV for realistic design and parameters. This value is twice as high as the thermal energy at room temperature and significantly extends the application potential of III-V semiconductor-based topological devices.
Quantum anomalous Hall effect (QAHE) has been experimentally realized in magnetically-doped topological insulators or intrinsic magnetic topological insulator MnBi$_2$Te$_4$ by applying an external magnetic field. However, either the low observation temperature or the unexpected external magnetic field (tuning all MnBi$_2$Te$_4$ layers to be ferromagnetic) still hinders further application of QAHE. Here, we theoretically demonstrate that proper stacking of MnBi$_2$Te$_4$ and Sb$_2$Te$_3$ layers is able to produce intrinsically ferromagnetic van der Waals heterostructures to realize the high-temperature QAHE. We find that interlayer ferromagnetic transition can happen at $T_{rm C}=42~rm K$ when a five-quintuple-layer Sb$_2$Te$_3$ topological insulator is inserted into two septuple-layer MnBi$_2$Te$_4$ with interlayer antiferromagnetic coupling. Band structure and topological property calculations show that MnBi$_2$Te$_4$/Sb$_2$Te$_3$/MnBi$_2$Te$_4$ heterostructure exhibits a topologically nontrivial band gap around 26 meV, that hosts a QAHE with a Chern number of $mathcal{C}=1$. In addition, our proposed materials system should be considered as an ideal platform to explore high-temperature QAHE due to the fact of natural charge-compensation, originating from the intrinsic n-type defects in MnBi$_2$Te$_4$ and p-type defects in Sb$_2$Te$_3$.
Quantum anomalous Hall effect (QAHE) has been experimentally observed in magnetically doped topological insulators. However, ultra-low temperature (usually below 300 mK), which is mainly attributed to inhomogeneous magnetic doping, becomes a daunting challenge for potential applications. Here, a textit{nonmagnetic}-doping strategy is proposed to produce ferromagnetism and realize QAHE in topological insulators. We numerically demonstrated that magnetic moments can be induced by nitrogen or carbon substitution in Bi$_2$Se$_3$, Bi$_2$Te$_3$, and Sb$_2$Te$_3$, but only nitrogen-doped Sb$_2$Te$_3$ exhibits long-range ferromagnetism and preserve large bulk band gap. We further show that its corresponding thin-film can harbor QAHE at temperatures of 17-29 Kelvin, which is two orders of magnitude higher than the typical temperatures in similar systems. Our proposed textit{nonmagnetic} doping scheme may shed new light in experimental realization of high-temperature QAHE in topological insulators.
Based on first-principles calculations, we predict that the monolayer AuTe2Cl is a quantum spin Hall (QSH) insulator with a topological band gap about 10 meV. The three-dimensional (3D) AuTe2Cl is a topological semimetal that can be viewed as the monolayer stacking along b axis. By studying the energy level distribution of p orbitals of Te atoms for the bulk and the monolayer, we find that the confinement effect driven p_y^- and p_z^+ band inversion is responsible for the topological nontrivial nature of monolayer. Since 3D bulk AuTe2Cl has already been experimentally synthesized, we expect that monolayer AuTe2Cl can be exfoliated from a bulk sample and the predicted QSH effect can be observed.