Engineering three-dimensional topological insulators in Rashba-type spin-orbit coupled heterostructures [electronic resource]
Topological insulators represent a new class of quantum phase defined by invariant symmetries and spin-orbit coupling that guarantees metallic Dirac excitations at its surface. The discoveries of these states have sparked the hope of realizing non-trivial excitations and novel effects such as a magn...
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| Format: | Government Document Electronic eBook |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Washington, D.C. : Oak Ridge, Tenn. :
United States. Department of Energy. Office of Science ; Distributed by the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, U.S. Department of Energy,
2013.
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| Summary: | Topological insulators represent a new class of quantum phase defined by invariant symmetries and spin-orbit coupling that guarantees metallic Dirac excitations at its surface. The discoveries of these states have sparked the hope of realizing non-trivial excitations and novel effects such as a magnetoelectric effect and topological Majorana excitations. Here we develop a theoretical formalism to show that a three-dimensional topological insulator can be designed artificially via stacking bilayers of two-dimensional Fermi gases with opposite Rashba-type spin-orbit coupling on adjacent layers, and with interlayer quantum tunneling. We demonstrate that in the stack of bilayers grown along a (001)-direction, a non-trivial topological phase transition occurs above a critical number of Rashba bilayers. In the topological phase, we find the formation of a single spin-polarized Dirac cone at the G-point. This approach offers an accessible way to design artificial topological insulators in a set up that takes full advantage of the atomic layer deposition approach. This design principle is tunable and also allows us to bypass limitations imposed by bulk crystal geometry. |
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| Item Description: | Published through Scitech Connect. 06/06/2013. "Journal ID: ISSN 2041-1723." "Other: PII: BFncomms2972." Das, Tanmoy ; Balatsky, A. V. ; |
| Physical Description: | Size: Article No. 1972 : digital, PDF file. |