No Arabic abstract
The quantum Hall effect is studied in the topological insulator BiSbTeSe$_2$. By employing top- and back-gate electric fields at high magnetic field, the Landau levels of the Dirac cones in the top and bottom topological surface states can be tuned independently. When one surface is tuned to the electron-doped side of the Dirac cone and the other surface to the hole-doped side, the quantum Hall edge channels are counter-propagating. The opposite edge mode direction, combined with the opposite helicities of top and bottom surfaces, allows for scattering between these counter-propagating edge modes. The total Hall conductance is integer valued only when the scattering is strong. For weaker interaction, a non-integer quantum Hall effect is expected and measured.
We present a microscopic theory of the chiral one-dimensional electron gas system localized on the sidewalls of magnetically-doped Bi$_2$Se$_3$-family topological insulator nanoribbons in the quantum anomalous Hall effect (QAHE) regime. Our theory is based on a simple continuum model of sidewall states whose parameters are extracted from detailed ribbon and film geometry tight-binding model calculations. In contrast to the familiar case of the quantum Hall effect in semiconductor quantum wells, the number of microscopic chiral channels depends simply and systematically on the ribbon thickness and on the position of the Fermi level within the surface state gap. We use our theory to interpret recent transport experiments that exhibit non-zero longitudinal resistance in samples with accurately quantized Hall conductances.
We investigate energy transfer between counter-propagating quantum Hall edge channels (ECs) in a two-dimensional electron system at filling factor u=1. The ECs are separated by a thin impenetrable potential barrier and Coulomb coupled, thereby constituting a quasi one-dimensional analogue of a spinless Luttinger liquid (LL). We drive one, say hot, EC far from thermal equilibrium and measure the energy transfer rate P into the second, cold, EC using a quantum point contact as a bolometer. The dependence of P on the drive bias indicates breakdown of the momentum conservation, whereas P is almost independent on the length of the region where the ECs interact. Interpreting our results in terms of plasmons (collective density excitations), we find that the energy transfer between the ECs occurs via plasmon backscattering at the boundaries of the LL. The backscattering probability is determined by the LL interaction parameter and can be tuned by changing the width of the electrostatic potential barrier between the ECs.
A periodically driven quantum Hall system in a fixed magnetic field is found to exhibit a series of phases featuring anomalous edge modes with the wrong chirality. This leads to pairs of counter-propagating chiral edge modes at each edge, in sharp contrast to stationary quantum Hall systems. We show that the pair of Floquet edge modes are protected by the chiral (sublattice) symmetry, and that they are robust against static disorder. The existence of distinctive phases with the same Chern and winding numbers but very different edge state spectra points to the important role played by symmetry in classifying topological properties of driven systems. We further explore the evolution of the edge states with driving using a simplified model, and discuss their experimental signatures.
In this paper, we review recent developments in the emerging field of electron quantum optics, stressing analogies and differences with the usual case of photon quantum optics. Electron quantum optics aims at preparing, manipulating and measuring coherent single electron excitations propagating in ballistic conductors such as the edge channels of a 2DEG in the integer quantum Hall regime. Because of the Fermi statistics and the presence of strong interactions, electron quantum optics exhibits new features compared to the usual case of photon quantum optics. In particular, it provides a natural playground to understand decoherence and relaxation effects in quantum transport.
The spin-polarized surface states in topological insulators offer unique transport characteristics which make them distinguishable from trivial conductors. Due to the topological protection, these states are gapless over the whole surface of the material. Here, we detect the surface states in the topological insulator BiSbTeSe$_{2}$ by electrical means using a non-local transport configuration. We unambiguously probe the spin-momentum locking of the topologically protected surface states by spin-sensitive electrical read-out using ferromagnetic Co/Al$_2$O$_3$ electrodes. We show that the non-local measurement allows to probe the surface currents flowing along the whole surface, i.e. from the top along the side to the bottom surface and back to the top surface along the opposite side. This is in contrast to local transport configurations where only the surface states of the one face being in contact to the electrodes can be measured. Our results furthermore exclude the contribution of the bulk to the non-local transport at low temperatures. Increasing the temperature, on the other hand, increases the interaction between bulk and surface states, which shortens the non-local current path along the surface and hence leads to a complete disappearance of the non-local signal at around 20 K. All this demonstrates that the non-local signal at low temperatures is solely due to the topologically protected surface states.