Topological surface states protected from backscattering by chiral spin texture

Nature ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 460 (7259) ◽  
pp. 1106-1109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedram Roushan ◽  
Jungpil Seo ◽  
Colin V. Parker ◽  
Y. S. Hor ◽  
D. Hsieh ◽  
...  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
pp. eaaw3988 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mu Chen ◽  
Ye-Ping Jiang ◽  
Junping Peng ◽  
Huimin Zhang ◽  
Cui-Zu Chang ◽  
...  

The surface of a three-dimensional topological insulator (TI) hosts two-dimensional massless Dirac fermions (DFs), the gapless and spin-helical nature of which leads to their high transmission through surface defects or potential barriers. Here, we report the behaviors of topological surface states (TSS) in a triangular quantum corral (TQC) which, unlike a circular corral, is supposed to be totally transparent for DFs. By real-space mapping of the electronic structure of TQCs, both the trapping and detrapping behaviors of the TSS are observed. The selection rules are found to be governed by the geometry and spin texture of the constant energy contour of TSS upon the strong hexagonal warping in Bi2Te3. Our work indicates the extended nature of TSS and elucidates the selection rules of the trapping of TSS in the presence of a complicated surface state structure, giving insights into the effective engineering of DFs in TIs.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (26) ◽  
pp. eabf1854
Author(s):  
Daniel Rosenbach ◽  
Tobias W. Schmitt ◽  
Peter Schüffelgen ◽  
Martin P. Stehno ◽  
Chuan Li ◽  
...  

In Josephson junctions, a supercurrent across a nonsuperconducting weak link is carried by electron-hole bound states. Because of the helical spin texture of nondegenerate topological surface states, gapless bound states are established in junctions with topological weak link. These have a characteristic 4π-periodic current phase relation (CΦR) that leads to twice the conventional Shapiro step separation voltage in radio frequency–dependent measurements. In this context, we identify an attenuated first Shapiro step in (Bi0.06Sb0.94)2Te3 (BST) Josephson junctions with AlOx capping layer. We further investigate junctions on narrow, selectively deposited BST nanoribbons, where surface charges are confined to the perimeter of the nanoribbon. Within these junctions, previously identified signatures of gapless bound states are absent. Because of confinement, transverse momentum sub-bands are quantized and a topological gap opening is observed. Surface states within these quantized sub-bands are spin degenerate, which evokes bound states of conventional 2π-periodic CΦR within the BST nanoribbon weak link.


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 495-499 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pan He ◽  
Steven S.-L. Zhang ◽  
Dapeng Zhu ◽  
Yang Liu ◽  
Yi Wang ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
pp. 2008411
Author(s):  
Jinjun Ding ◽  
Chuanpu Liu ◽  
Yuejie Zhang ◽  
Vijaysankar Kalappattil ◽  
Rui Yu ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyungchan Lee ◽  
Gunnar F. Lange ◽  
Lin-Lin Wang ◽  
Brinda Kuthanazhi ◽  
Thaís V. Trevisan ◽  
...  

AbstractTime reversal symmetric (TRS) invariant topological insulators (TIs) fullfil a paradigmatic role in the field of topological materials, standing at the origin of its development. Apart from TRS protected strong TIs, it was realized early on that more confounding weak topological insulators (WTI) exist. WTIs depend on translational symmetry and exhibit topological surface states only in certain directions making it significantly more difficult to match the experimental success of strong TIs. We here report on the discovery of a WTI state in RhBi2 that belongs to the optimal space group P$$\bar{1}$$ 1 ¯ , which is the only space group where symmetry indicated eigenvalues enumerate all possible invariants due to absence of additional constraining crystalline symmetries. Our ARPES, DFT calculations, and effective model reveal topological surface states with saddle points that are located in the vicinity of a Dirac point resulting in a van Hove singularity (VHS) along the (100) direction close to the Fermi energy (EF). Due to the combination of exotic features, this material offers great potential as a material platform for novel quantum effects.


2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (15) ◽  
pp. 154001
Author(s):  
Debarghya Mallick ◽  
Shoubhik Mandal ◽  
R. Ganesan ◽  
P. S. Anil Kumar

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shama ◽  
R. K. Gopal ◽  
Goutam Sheet ◽  
Yogesh Singh

AbstractPd$$_{3}$$ 3 Bi$$_{2}$$ 2 S$$_{2}$$ 2 (PBS) is a recently proposed topological semimetal candidate. However, evidence for topological surface states have not yet been revealed in transport measurements due to the large mobility of bulk carriers. We report the growth and magneto-transport studies of PBS thin films where the mobility of the bulk carriers is reduced by two orders of magnitude, revealing for the first time, contributions from the 2-dimensional (2D) topological surface states in the observation of the 2D weak anti-localization (WAL) effect in magnetic field and angle dependent conductivity measurements. The magnetotransport data is analysed within the 2D Hikami-Larkin-Nagaoka (HLN) theory. The analysis suggests that multiple conduction channels contribute to the transport. It is also found that the temperature dependence of the dephasing length can’t be explained only by electron-electron scattering and that electron-phonon scattering also contributes to the phase relaxation mechanism in PBS films.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vishal Bhardwaj ◽  
Anupam Bhattacharya ◽  
Shivangi Srivastava ◽  
Vladimir V. Khovaylo ◽  
Jhuma Sannigrahi ◽  
...  

AbstractHalf-Heusler compounds exhibit a remarkable variety of emergent properties such as heavy-fermion behaviour, unconventional superconductivity and magnetism. Several of these compounds have been predicted to host topologically non-trivial electronic structures. Remarkably, recent theoretical studies have indicated the possibility to induce non-trivial topological surface states in an otherwise trivial half-Heusler system by strain engineering. Here, using magneto-transport measurements and first principles DFT-based simulations, we demonstrate topological surface states on strained [110] oriented thin films of YPdBi grown on (100) MgO. These topological surface states arise in an otherwise trivial semi-metal purely driven by strain. Furthermore, we observe the onset of superconductivity in these strained films highlighting the possibility of engineering a topological superconducting state. Our results demonstrate the critical role played by strain in engineering novel topological states in thin film systems for developing next-generation spintronic devices.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document