Electrical switching and interferometry of massive Dirac particles in topological insulators constrictions

Abstract

We investigate the electrical switching of charge and spin transport in a topological insulator nanoconstriction in a four terminal device. The switch of the edge channels is caused by the coupling between edge states which overlap in the constriction and by the tunneling effects at the contacts and therefore can be manipulated by tuning the applied voltages on the split-gate or by geometrical etching. The switching mechanism can be conveniently studied by electron interferometry involving the measurements of the current in different configurations of the side gates, while the applied bias from the external leads can be tuned to obtain pure charge or pure spin currents (charge- and spin- bias configurations). Relevant signatures of quantum confinement effects, quantum size effects and energy gap are evident in the Fabry-Perot physics of the device allowing for a full characterization of the charge and spin currents. The proposed electrical switching behavior offers an efficient tool to manipulate topological edge state transport in a controllable way.

10 pages; 14 figures

References in corpus (10)

• Quantum Spin Hall Effect and Topological Phase Transition in HgTe Quantum Wells
• Quantum Spin Hall Insulator State in HgTe Quantum Wells
• Topological Field Theory of Time-Reversal Invariant Insulators
• Nonlocal edge state transport in the quantum spin Hall state
• Finite size effects of helical edge states in HgTe/CdTe quantum wells
• Corner Junction as a Probe of Helical Edge States
• Full electrical control of Charge and Spin conductance through Interferometry of Edge States in Topological Insulators
• Tunneling between helical edge states through extended contacts
• Electrical manipulation and measurement of spin properties of quantum spin Hall edge states
• Dephasing of spin and charge interference in helical Luttinger liquids

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• Coulomb blockade microscopy of spin density oscillations and fractional charge in quantum spin Hall dots
• Ab initio study of $Z_2$ topological phases in perovskite (111) $({\text{SrTiO}}_3{)}_7/({\text{SrIrO}}_3{)}_2$ and $({\text{KTaO}}_3{)}_7/({\text{KPtO}}_3{)}_2$ multilayers
• Nonlinear spin-thermoelectric transport in two-dimensional topological insulators
• Spin current pumping in helical Luttinger liquids
• Tunnel junction of helical edge states: Determining and controlling spin-preserving and spin-flipping processes through transconductance
• Time-resolved energy dynamics after single electron injection into an interacting helical liquid
• Photoexcitation of electron wave packets in quantum spin Hall edge states: effects of chiral anomaly from a localised electric pulse
• Optimal thermoelectricity with quantum spin-Hall edge states
• Spin textures of strongly correlated spin Hall quantum dots
• Transport phenomena in helical edge states interferometers. A Green's function approach
• Helical edge states in multiple topological mass domains
• Helical spin thermoelectrics controlled by a side-coupled magnetic quantum dot in the quantum spin Hall state
• Electronic quantum optics beyond the integer quantum Hall effect
• Noise and current correlations in tunnel junctions of Quantum Spin Hall edge states
• Majorana-like localized spin density without bound states in topologically trivial spin-orbit coupled nanowires
• Point contacts and localization in generic helical liquids
• Magnetic AC control of the spin textures in a helical Luttinger liquid
• Fabry-Pérot resonant vortices and magnetoconductance in topological insulator constrictions with magnetic barriers
• Interplay between Rashba interaction and electromagnetic field in the edge states of a 2D topological insulator
• Effects of disorder on electron tunneling through helical edge states
• All-electric spin transistor based on a side-gate-modulated two-dimensional topological insulator
• Transport via double constrictions in integer and fractional topological insulators
• Conductance oscillations in quantum point contacts of InAs/GaSb heterostructures
• Interaction effects in non-equilibrium transport properties of a four-terminal topological corner junction
• Electrically controlled crossing of energy levels in quantum dots in two-dimensional topological insulators
• Fabry-Pérot interferometry with gate-tunable 3D topological insulator nanowires
• Quantum computing through electron propagation in the edge states of quantum spin Hall systems
• A topological current divider
• Transport in quantum spin Hall edges in contact to a quantum dot
• Confinement versus interface bound states in spin-orbit coupled nanowires
• Lifting topological protection in a quantum spin Hall insulator by edge coupling