Weak antilocalization in HgTe quantum wells and topological surface states: Massive versus massless Dirac fermions

Abstract

HgTe quantum wells and surfaces of three-dimensional topological insulators support Dirac fermions with a single-valley band dispersion. In the presence of disorder they experience weak antilocalization, which has been observed in recent transport experiments. In this work we conduct a comparative theoretical study of the weak antilocalization in HgTe quantum wells and topological surface states. The difference between these two single-valley systems comes from a finite band gap (effective Dirac mass) in HgTe quantum wells in contrast to gapless (massless) surface states in topological insulators. The finite effective Dirac mass implies a broken internal symmetry, leading to suppression of the weak antilocalization in HgTe quantum wells at times larger than certain t_M, inversely proportional to the Dirac mass. This corresponds to the opening of a relaxation gap 1/t_M in the Cooperon diffusion mode which we obtain from the Bethe-Salpeter equation including relevant spin degrees of freedom. We demonstrate that the relaxation gap exhibits an interesting nonmonotonic dependence on both carrier density and band gap, vanishing at a certain combination of these parameters. The weak-antilocalization conductivity reflects this nonmonotonic behavior which is unique to HgTe QWs and absent for topological surface states. On the other hand, the topological surface states exhibit specific weak-antilocalization magnetoconductivity in a parallel magnetic field due to their exponential decay in the bulk.

14 pages, 10 figures, version as published

References in corpus (24)

• Electric Field Effect in Atomically Thin Carbon Films
• The electronic properties of graphene
• Quantum Spin Hall Effect and Topological Phase Transition in HgTe Quantum Wells
• Quantum Spin Hall Insulator State in HgTe Quantum Wells
• Topological Insulators with Inversion Symmetry
• Discovery (theoretical prediction and experimental observation) of a large-gap topological-insulator class with spin-polarized single-Dirac-cone on the surface
• A topological Dirac insulator in a quantum spin Hall phase : Experimental observation of first strong topological insulator
• Topological Field Theory of Time-Reversal Invariant Insulators
• First direct observation of Spin-textures in Topological Insulators : Spin-resolved ARPES as a probe of topological quantum spin Hall effect and Berry's phase
• Weak localisation magnetoresistance and valley symmetry in graphene
• Strong suppression of weak (anti)localization in graphene
• Nonlocal edge state transport in the quantum spin Hall state
• The Quantum Spin Hall Effect: Theory and Experiment
• Gate-Voltage Control of Chemical Potential and Weak Anti-localization in Bismuth Selenide
• Impurity effect on weak anti-localization in the topological insulator Bi2Te3
• Bulk Band Gap and Surface State Conduction Observed in Voltage-Tuned Crystals of the Topological Insulator Bi${}_2$Se${}_3$
• Effect of Disorder on Transport in Graphene
• Single valley Dirac fermions in zero-gap HgTe quantum wells
• Symmetry Classes in Graphene Quantum Dots: Universal Spectral Statistics, Weak Localization, and Conductance Fluctuations
• Magneto-optical and Magneto-electric Effects of Topological Insulators in Quantizing Magnetic Fields
• Weak localization in ferromagnetic (Ga,Mn)As nanostructures
• Backscattering of Dirac fermions in HgTe quantum wells with a finite gap
• Weak antilocalization in high mobility Ga(x)In(1-x)As/InP two-dimensional electron gases with strong spin-orbit coupling
• Transition between ordinary and topological insulator regimes in two-dimensional resonant magnetotransport

Cited by in corpus (55)

• Weak localization of bulk channels in topological insulator thin film
• Quantum interference and Aharonov-Bohm oscillations in topological insulators
• Weak Localization and Antilocalization in Topological Insulator Thin Films with Coherent Bulk-Surface Coupling
• Transport in three-dimensional topological insulators: theory and experiment
• Weak antilocalization in topological insulator Bi${}_2$Te${}_3$ microflakes
• Coherent Topological Transport on the Surface of Bi2Se3
• Finite-temperature conductivity and magnetoconductivity of topological insulators
• Gate-tuned Differentiation of Surface-conducting States in Bi1.5Sb0.5Te1.7Se1.3 Topological-insulator Thin Crystals
• One-dimensional edge state transport in a topological Kondo insulator
• Spin-helical transport in normal and superconducting topological insulators
• Helical Andreev bound states and superconducting Klein tunneling in topological insulator Josephson junctions
• Parallel field magnetoresistance in topological insulator thin films
• Dynamical screening in monolayer transition-metal dichalcogenides and its manifestations in the exciton spectrum
• Weak antilocalization and electron-electron interaction in coupled multiple-channel transport in a Bi${}_2$Se${}_3$ thin film
• Linear magneto-resistance versus weak antilocalization effects in Bi${}_2$Te${}_3$ films
• Two-dimensional semimetal in a wide HgTe quantum well: magnetotransport and energy spectrum
• Conductivity Corrections for Topological Insulators with Spin-Orbit Impurities: A New Hikami-Larkin-Nagaoka Formula
• Suppression of surface p-wave superconductivity in disordered topological insulators
• Weak Localization and Antilocalization in Topological Materials with Impurity Spin-Orbit Interactions
• Inelastic Electron Tunneling Spectroscopy for Topological Insulators
• Quantum Interference Theory of Magnetoresistance in Dirac Materials
• Weak antilocalization in HgTe quantum well with inverted energy spectrum
• Quantum Transport in Weyl Semimetal Thin Films in the Presence of Spin-Orbit Coupled Impurities
• Symmetries and weak (anti)localization of Dirac fermions in HgTe quantum wells
• Crossover Between Weak Antilocalization and Weak Localization and Electron-Electron Interaction in Few-Layer WTe${}_2$
• Aharonov Bohm effect in 2D topological insulator
• Signatures of dephasing by mirror-symmetry breaking in weak-antilocalization magnetoresistance across the topological transition in Pb${}_{1-x}$Sn${}_x$Se
• Fluctuation Phenomena in Chaotic Dirac Quantum Dots: Artificial Atoms on Graphene Flakes
• Charge puddles in a completely compensated topological insulator
• One-dimensional weak antilocalization and band Berry phases in HgTe wires
• Aharonov-Bohm oscillations in the local density of topological surface states
• Probing the Band Topology of Mercury Telluride through Weak Localization and Antilocalization
• Interference-induced magnetoresistance in HgTe quantum wells
• Two-dimensional topological insulators in quantizing magnetic fields
• Weak antilocalization beyond the fully diffusive regime in Pb1-xSnxSe topological quantum wells
• Transport in topological insulators with bulk-surface coupling: Interference corrections and conductance fluctuations
• In-depth Analysis of Anisotropic Magnetoconductance in Bi${}_2$Se${}_3$ thin films with electron-electron interaction corrections
• Coulomb drag in topological insulator films
• Weak antilocalization in two-dimensional systems with large Rashba splitting
• Weak antilocalization of holes in HgTe quantum wells with a normal energy spectrum
• Non-universal weak antilocalization effect in cubic topological Kondo insulators
• Disorder-induced topological phase transition in HgCdTe crystals
• Coulomb drag in topological materials
• Strained HgTe: a textbook 3D topological insulator
• Anisotropic conductivity and weak localization in HgTe quantum well with normal energy spectrum
• Quantum interference in HgTe structures
• Weak localization of holes in high-mobility heterostructures
• Finite-size scaling in a 2D disordered electron gas with spectral nodes
• Weak localization and Berry flux in topological crystalline insulators with a quadratic surface spectrum
• Negative-U Superconductivity on the Surface of Topological Insulators
• Diffusion at the Surface of Topological Insulators
• Weak-localization approach to a 2D electron gas with a spectral node
• Weak antilocalization in partially relaxed 200-nm HgTe films
• Super-resonant transport of topological surface states subjected to in-plane magnetic fields
• Granular topological insulators