Unbalanced edge modes and topological phase transition in gated trilayer graphene

Abstract

Gapless edge modes hosted by chirally-stacked trilayer graphene display unique features when a bulk gap is opened by applying an interlayer potential difference. We show that trilayer graphene with half-integer valley Hall conductivity leads to unbalanced edge modes at opposite zigzag boundaries, resulting in a natural valley current polarizer. This unusual characteristic is preserved in the presence of Rashba spin-orbit coupling that turns a gated trilayer graphene into a $Z_2$ topological insulator with an odd number of helical edge mode pairs.

5 pages, 4 figures

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Cited by in corpus (8)

• Topological Phases in Two-Dimensional Materials: A Brief Review
• Gapped broken symmetry states in ABC trilayer graphene
• Topological phases in gated bilayer graphene: Effects of Rashba spin-orbit coupling and exchange field
• Spontaneous Layer-Pseudospin Domain Walls in Bilayer Graphene
• Gate-induced Dirac cones in multilayer graphenes
• Current partition at zero-line intersection of quantum anomalous Hall topologies
• The role of geometry and topological defects in the 1D zero-line modes of graphene
• Stabilizing the inverted phase of a WSe${}_2$/BLG/WSe${}_2$ heterostructure via hydrostatic pressure