Anomalous Electron Trajectory in Topological Insulators

Abstract

We present a general theory about electron orbital motions in topological insulators. An in-plane electric field drives spin-up and spin-down electrons bending to opposite directions, and skipping orbital motions, a counterpart of the integer quantum Hall effect, are formed near the boundary of the sample. The accompanying Zitterbewegung can be found and controlled by tuning external electric fields. Ultrafast flipping electron spin leads to a quantum side jump in the topological insulator, and a snake-orbit motion in two-dimensional electron gas with spin-orbit interactions. This feature provides a way to control electron orbital motion by manipulating electron spin.

5 pages and 4 figures for the letter, 6 pagers for the online supplemental material

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Cited by in corpus (17)

• Dynamics of a quasiparticle in the $\alpha$-T${}_3$ model: Role of pseudospin polarization and transverse magnetic field on \textbf{\textit{zitterbewegung}}
• Colloidal topological insulators
• Wave packet dynamics and zitterbewegung of heavy holes in a quantizing magnetic field
• Zitterbewegung of moiré excitons in twisted MoS${}_2$/WSe${}_2$ hetero-bilayers
• Effect of zitterbewegung on the propagation of wave packets in ABC-stacked multilayer graphene: an analytical and computational approach
• Zitterbewegung and bulk-edge Landau-Zener tunneling in topological insulators
• Edge states at the boundary between topologically equivalent lattices
• Steering Zitterbewegung in driven Dirac systems -- from persistent modes to echoes
• Zitterbewegung in time-reversal Weyl Semimetals
• Zitterbewegung of a heavy hole in presence of spin-orbit interactions
• $\text{Zitterbewegung}$ near new Dirac points in graphene superlattice
• Electric field effect on electron gas spins in two-dimensional magnets with strong spin-orbit coupling
• Zitterbewegung-mediated RKKY coupling in topological insulator thin films
• A semiclassical approach to surface Fermi arcs in Weyl semimetals
• Signature of topological phases in Zitterbewegung
• Non-adiabatic Berry phase for semiconductor heavy holes under the coexistence of Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit interactions
• Dynamical properties of quasiparticles in a tunable Kekulé graphene superlattice