Controlling edge states in the Kane-Mele model via edge chirality

Abstract

We investigate the dependence of band dispersion of the quantum spin Hall effect (QSHE) edge states in the Kane-Mele model on crystallographic orientation of the edges. Band structures of the one-dimensional honeycomb lattice ribbons show the presence of the QSHE edge states at all orientations of the edges given sufficiently strong spin-orbit interactions. We find that the Fermi velocities of the QSHE edge-state bands increase monotonically when the edge orientation changes from zigzag (chirality angle $\theta =0^{\circ }$) to armchair ($\theta =30^{\circ }$). We propose a simple analytical model to explain the numerical results.

to appear in Phys. Status Solidi RRL, Focus Issue on Topological Insulators

References in corpus (3)

• Energy Gaps in Graphene Nanoribbons
• Intrinsic and Rashba Spin-orbit Interactions in Graphene Sheets
• Spin-orbit gap of graphene: First-principles calculations

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Correlation effects in two-dimensional topological insulators