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تسجيل مستخدم جديدTopological protection brought to light by the time-reversal symmetry breaking
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Recent topological band theory distinguishes electronic band insulators with respect to various symmetries and topological invariants, most commonly, the time reversal symmetry and the $rm Z_2$ invariant. The interface of two topologically distinct insulators hosts a unique class of electronic states -- the helical states, which shortcut the gapped bulk and exhibit spin-momentum locking. The magic and so far elusive property of the helical electrons, known as topological protection, prevents them from coherent backscattering as long as the underlying symmetry is preserved. Here we present an experiment which brings to light the strength of topological protection in one-dimensional helical edge states of a $rm Z_2$ quantum spin-Hall insulator in HgTe. At low temperatures, we observe the dramatic impact of a tiny magnetic field, which results in an exponential increase of the resistance accompanied by giant mesoscopic fluctuations and a gap opening. This textbook Anderson localization scenario emerges only upon the time-reversal symmetry breaking, bringing the first direct evidence of the topological protection strength in helical edge states.
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Magnetotransport measurements are a popular way of characterizing the electronic structure of topological materials and often the resulting datasets cannot be described by the well-known Drude model due to large, non-parabolic contributions. In this
work, we focus on the effects of magnetic fields on topological materials through a Zeeman term included in the model Hamiltonian. To this end, we re-evaluate the simplifications made in the derivations of the Drude model and pinpoint the scattering time and Fermi velocity as Zeeman-term dependent factors in the conductivity tensor. The driving mechanisms here are the aligment of spins along the magnetic field direction, which allows for backscattering, and a significant change to the Fermi velocity by the opening of a hybridization gap. After considering 2D and 3D Dirac states, as well as 2D Rashba surface states and the quasi-2D bulk states of 3D topological insulators, we find that the 2D Dirac states on the surfaces of 3D topological insulators produce magnetoresistance, that is significant enough to be noticable in experiments. As this magnetoresistance effect is strongly dependent on the spin-orbit energy, it can be used as a telltale sign of a Fermi energy located close to the Dirac point.
Time-reversal (T) symmetry breaking is a fundamental physics concept underpinning a broad science and technology area, including topological magnets, axion physics, dissipationless Hall currents, or spintronic memories. A best known conventional mode
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Fascinating phenomena have been known to arise from the Dirac theory of relativistic quantum mechanics, which describes high energy particles having linear dispersion relations. Electrons in solids usually have non-relativistic dispersion relations b
ut their quantum excitations can mimic relativistic effects. In topological insulators, electrons have both a linear dispersion relation, the Dirac behavior, on the surface and a non-relativistic energy dispersion in the bulk. Topological phases of matter have attracted much interest, particularly broken-symmetry phases in topological insulator materials. Here, we report by Nb doping that the topological insulator Bi2Se3 can be turned into a bulk type-II superconductor while the Dirac surface dispersion in the normal state is preserved. A macroscopic magnetic ordering appears below the superconducting critical temperature of 3.2 K indicating a spontaneous spin rotation symmetry breaking of the Nb magnetic moments. Even though such a magnetic order may appear at the edge of the superconductor, it is mediated by superconductivity and presents a novel phase of matter which gives rise to a zero-field Hall effect.
Studying the influence of breaking time-reversal symmetry on topological insulator surface states is an important problem of current interest in condensed matter physics and could provide a route toward proof-of-concept spintronic devices that exploi
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