No Arabic abstract
We investigate adiabatic quantum pumping of Dirac fermions on the surface of a strong 3D topological insulator. Two different geometries are studied in detail, a normal metal -- ferromagnetic -- normal metal (NFN) junction and a ferromagnetic -- normal metal -- ferromagnetic (FNF) junction. Using a scattering matrix approach, we first calculate the tunneling conductance and then the adiabatically pumped current using different pumping mechanisms for both types of junctions. We explain the oscillatory behavior of the conductance by studying the condition for resonant transmission in the junctions and find that each time a new resonant mode appears in the transport window, the pumped current diverges. We also predict an experimentally distinguishable difference between the pumped current and the rectified current.
This article reviews experimental work on the ultrafast electron dynamics in the topological surface state (TSS) of three-dimensional (3D) topological insulators (TIs) observed with time- and angle-resolved two-photon photoemission (2PPE). The focus is laid on the generation of ultrafast photocurrents and the time-resolved observation of their decay. 2PPE not only allow to unambiguously relate the photocurrents to the spin-polarized electronic surface states. Probing of the asymmetric momentum distribution of the electrons carrying the current makes it possible to study the microscopic scattering processes that governs the unusual electron transport in the time domain. Ultrashort mid-infrared pump pulses permit not only a direct optical excitation of the TSS in Sb$_2$Te$_3$ but also lead to a strong asymmetry of the TSS population in momentum space. Two-dimensional band mapping of the TSS shows that this asymmetry is in fact representative for a macroscopic photocurrent while the helicity-dependence of the photocurrent is found to be small. The time-resolved observation of the photocurrent decay reveals a huge mean free path of the electrons in the TSS.
We study non-adiabatic two-parameter charge and spin pumping through a single-level quantum dot with Coulomb interaction. For the limit of weak tunnel coupling and in the regime of pumping frequencies up to the tunneling rates, $Omega lesssim Gamma/hbar$, we perform an exact resummation of contributions of all orders in the pumping frequency. As striking non-adiabatic signatures, we find frequency-dependent phase shifts in the charge and spin currents, which allow for an effective single-parameter pumping as well as pure spin without charge currents.
The edge states of a two-dimensional quantum spin Hall (QSH) insulator form a one-dimensional helical metal which is responsible for the transport property of the QSH insulator. Conceptually, such a one-dimensional helical metal can be attached to any scattering region as the usual metallic leads. We study the analytical property of the scattering matrix for such a conceptual multiterminal scattering problem in the presence of time reversal invariance. As a result, several theorems on the connectivity property of helical edge states in two-dimensional QSH systems as well as surface states of three-dimensional topological insulators are obtained. Without addressing real model details, these theorems, which are phenomenologically obtained, emphasize the general connectivity property of topological edge/surface states from the mere time reversal symmetry restriction.
We study the properties of a family of anti-pervoskite materials, which are topological crystalline insulators with an insulating bulk but a conducting surface. Using ab-initio DFT calculations, we investigate the bulk and surface topology and show that these materials exhibit type-I as well as type-II Dirac surface states protected by reflection symmetry. While type-I Dirac states give rise to closed circular Fermi surfaces, type-II Dirac surface states are characterized by open electron and hole pockets that touch each other. We find that the type-II Dirac states exhibit characteristic van-Hove singularities in their dispersion, which can serve as an experimental fingerprint. In addition, we study the response of the surface states to magnetic fields.
We use exact techniques to demonstrate theoretically the pumping of fractional charges in a single-level non-interacting quantum dot, when the dot-reservoir coupling is adiabatically driven from weak to strong coupling. The pumped charge averaged over many cycles is quantized at a fraction of an electron per cycle, determined by the ratio of Lamb shift to level-broadening; this ratio is imposed by the reservoir band-structure. For uniform density of states, half an electron is pumped per cycle. We call this adiabatic almost-topological pumping, because the pumpings Berry curvature is sharply peaked in the parameter space. Hence, so long as the pumping contour does not touch the peak, the pumped charge depends only on how many times the contour winds around the peak (up to exponentially small corrections). However, the topology does not protect against non-adiabatic corrections, which grow linearly with pump speed. In one limit the peak becomes a delta-function, so the adiabatic pumping of fractional charges becomes entirely topological. Our results show that quantization of the adiabatic pumped charge at a fraction of an electron does not require fractional particles or other exotic physics.