No Arabic abstract
The 3D topological insulator (TI) PN junction under magnetic fields presents a novel transport property which is investigated both theoretically and numerically in this paper. Transport in this device can be tuned by the axial magnetic field. Specifically, the scattering coefficients between incoming and outgoing modes oscillate with axial magnetic flux at the harmonic form. In the condition of horizontal mirror symmetry, the initial phase of the harmonic oscillation is dependent on the parities of incoming and outgoing modes. This symmetry is broken when a vertical bias is applied which leads to a kinetic phase shift added to the initial phase. On the other hand, the amplitude of oscillation is suppressed by the surface disorder while it has no influence on the phase of oscillation. Furthermore, with the help of the vertical bias, a special (1,-2) 3D TI PN junction can be achieved, leading to a novel spin precession phenomenon.
Electrical transport in three dimensional topological insulators(TIs) occurs through spin-momentum locked topological surface states that enclose an insulating bulk. In the presence of a magnetic field, surface states get quantized into Landau levels giving rise to chiral edge states that are naturally spin-polarized due to spin momentum locking. It has been proposed that p-n junctions of TIs in the quantum Hall regime can manifest unique spin dependent effects, apart from forming basic building blocks for highly functional spintronic devices. Here, for the first time we study electrostatically defined n-p-n junctions of bulk insulating topological insulator BiSbTe$_{1.25}$Se$_{1.75}$ in the quantum Hall regime. We reveal the remarkable quantization of longitudinal resistance into plateaus at 3/2 and 2/3 h/e$^2$, apart from several partially developed fractional plateaus. Theoretical modeling combining the electrostatics of the dual gated TI n-p-n junction with Landauer Buttiker formalism for transport through a network of chiral edge states explains our experimental data, while revealing remarkable differences from p-n junctions of graphene and two-dimensional electron gas systems. Our work not only opens up a route towards exotic spintronic devices but also provides a test bed for investigating the unique signatures of quantum Hall effects in topological insulators.
We have developed a device fabrication process to pattern graphene into nanostructures of arbitrary shape and control their electronic properties using local electrostatic gates. Electronic transport measurements have been used to characterize locally gated bipolar graphene $p$-$n$-$p$ junctions. We observe a series of fractional quantum Hall conductance plateaus at high magnetic fields as the local charge density is varied in the $p$ and $n$ regions. These fractional plateaus, originating from chiral edge states equilibration at the $p$-$n$ interfaces, exhibit sensitivity to inter-edge backscattering which is found to be strong for some of the plateuas and much weaker for other plateaus. We use this effect to explore the role of backscattering and estimate disorder strength in our graphene devices.
We review our recent works on the quantum transport, mainly in topological semimetals and also in topological insulators, organized according to the strength of the magnetic field. At weak magnetic fields, we explain the negative magnetoresistance in topological semimetals and topological insulators by using the semiclassical equations of motion with the nontrivial Berry curvature. We show that the negative magnetoresistance can exist without the chiral anomaly. At strong magnetic fields, we establish theories for the quantum oscillations in topological Weyl, Dirac, and nodal-line semimetals. We propose a new mechanism of 3D quantum Hall effect, via the wormhole tunneling through the Weyl orbit formed by the Fermi arcs and Weyl nodes in topological semimetals. In the quantum limit at extremely strong magnetic fields, we find that an unexpected Hall resistance reversal can be understood in terms of the Weyl fermion annihilation. Additionally, in parallel magnetic fields, longitudinal resistance dips in the quantum limit can serve as signatures for topological insulators.
Recent acoustic and electrical-circuit experiments have reported the third-order (or octupole) topological insulating phase, while its counterpart in classical magnetic systems is yet to be realized. Here we explore the collective dynamics of magnetic vortices in three-dimensional breathing cuboids, and find that the vortex lattice can support zero-dimensional corner states, one-dimensional hinge states, two-dimensional surface states, and three-dimensional bulk states, when the ratio of alternating intralayer and interlayer bond lengths goes beyond a critical value. We show that only the corner states are stable against external frustrations because of the topological protection. Full micromagnetic simulations verify our theoretical predictions with good agreement.
Low energy excitation of surface states of a three-dimensional topological insulator (3DTI) can be described by Dirac fermions. By using a tight-binding model, the transport properties of the surface states in a uniform magnetic field is investigated. It is found that chiral surface states parallel to the magnetic field are responsible to the quantized Hall (QH) conductance $(2n+1)frac{e^2}{h}$ multiplied by the number of Dirac cones. Due to the two-dimension (2D) nature of the surface states, the robustness of the QH conductance against impurity scattering is determined by the oddness and evenness of the Dirac cone number. An experimental setup for transport measurement is proposed.