Subscribe to the gold package and get unlimited access to Shamra Academy
Register a new userSpin splitting of surface states in HgTe quantum wells
85
0
0.0
(
0
)
Ask ChatGPT about the research
No Arabic abstract
We report on beating appearance in Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations in conduction band of 18-22nm HgTe quantum wells under applied top-gate voltage. Analysis of the beatings reveals two electron concentrations at the Fermi level arising due to Rashba-like spin splitting of the first conduction subband H1. The difference dN_s in two concentrations as a function of the gate voltage is qualitatively explained by a proposed toy electrostatic model involving the surface states localized at quantum well interfaces. Experimental values of dN_s are also in a good quantitative agreement with self-consistent calculations of Poisson and Schrodinger equations with eight-band kp Hamiltonian. Our results clearly demonstrate that the large spin splitting of the first conduction subband is caused by surface nature of $H1$ states hybridized with the heavy-hole band.
rate research
Read More
Recent theory predicted that the Quantum Spin Hall Effect, a fundamentally novel quantum state of matter that exists at zero external magnetic field, may be realized in HgTe/(Hg,Cd)Te quantum wells. We have fabricated such sample structures with low density and high mobility in which we can tune, through an external gate voltage, the carrier conduction from n-type to the p-type, passing through an insulating regime. For thin quantum wells with well width d < 6.3 nm, the insulating regime shows the conventional behavior of vanishingly small conductance at low temperature. However, for thicker quantum wells (d > 6.3 nm), the nominally insulating regime shows a plateau of residual conductance close to 2e^2/h. The residual conductance is independent of the sample width, indicating that it is caused by edge states. Furthermore, the residual conductance is destroyed by a small external magnetic field. The quantum phase transition at the critical thickness, d = 6.3 nm, is also independently determined from the magnetic field induced insulator to metal transition. These observations provide experimental evidence of the quantum spin Hall effect.
We propose a minimal effective two-dimensional Hamiltonian for HgTe/CdHgTe quantum wells (QWs) describing the side maxima of the first valence subband. By using the Hamiltonian, we explore the picture of helical edge states in tensile and compressively strained HgTe QWs. We show that both dispersion and probability density of the edge states can differ significantly from those predicted by the Bernevig-Hughes-Zhang (BHZ) model. Our results pave the way towards further theoretical investigations of HgTe-based quantum spin Hall insulators with direct and indirect band gaps beyond the BHZ model.
We show that for lattice-mismatched zinc-blende-type (110)-grown quantum wells a significant contribution to the zero-magnetic-field spin splitting of electron subbands comes from strain-induced spin-orbit coupling. Combining envelope function theory and atomistic tight-binding approach we calculate spin-orbit splitting constants for realistic quantum wells. It is found that the strain due to lattice mismatch in conventional GaAs/AlGaAs structures may noticeably modify the spin splitting while in InGaAs/GaAs structures it plays a major role and may even change the sign of the spin splitting constant.
We analyze thermally induced spin and charge transport in HgTe/CdTe quantum wells on the basis of the numerical non-equilibrium Greens function technique in the linear response regime. In the topologically non-trivial regime, we find a clear signature of the gap of the edge states due to their finite overlap from opposite sample boundaries -- both in the charge Seebeck and spin Nernst signal. We are able to fully understand the physical origin of the thermoelectric transport signatures of edge and bulk states based on simple analytical models. Interestingly, we derive that the spin Nernst signal is related to the spin Hall conductance by a Mott-like relation which is exact to all orders in the temperature difference between the warm and the cold reservoir.
The Zeeman splitting of the conduction band in the HgTe quantum wells both with normal and inverted spectrum has been studied experimentally in a wide electron density range. The simultaneous analysis of the SdH oscillations in low magnetic fields at different tilt angles and of the shape of the oscillations in moderate magnetic fields gives a possibility to find the ratio of the Zeeman splitting to the orbital one and anisotropy of g-factor. It is shown that the ratios of the Zeeman splitting to the orbital one are close to each other for both types of structures, with a normal and inverted spectrum and they are close enough to the values calculated within kP method. In contrast, the values of g-factor anisotropy in the structures with normal and inverted spectra is strongly different and for both cases differs significantly from the calculated ones. We believe that such disagreement with calculations is a result of the interface inversion asymmetry in the HgTe quantum well, which is not taken into account in the kP calculations.
Log in to be able to interact and post comments
comments
Fetching comments
Sign in to be able to follow your search criteria
