Robustness of the helical edge states in topological insulators

Abstract

Topological insulators (TI) are materials having an energy band gap in the bulk and conducting helical electronic states on the surface. The helical states are protected by time reversal symmetry thus are expected to be robust against static disorder scattering. In this work we report atomistic first principles analysis of disorder scattering in two-probe transport junctions made of three dimensional TI material Bi2Se3. The robustness of the device against disorder scattering is determined quantitatively. Examining many different scattering configurations, a general trend emerges on how strong the perturbing potential and how it is spatially distributed that can derail the helical states on the Bi2Se3 surfaces.

5 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (2)

• Quantum Spin Hall Effect and Topological Phase Transition in HgTe Quantum Wells
• First Principles Studies on 3-Dimentional Strong Topological Insulators: Bi2Te3, Bi2Se3 and Sb2Te3

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Spin Orbit Torque in two dimensional Antiferromagnetic Topological Insulators
• Ab-initio transport across Bismuth Selenide surface barriers
• Floquet engineering of topological phase transitions in quantum spin Hall $\alpha$-$T_3$ system
• Suppression of Conductance in a Topological Insulator Nanostep Junction
• Topological phase in oxidized zigzag stanene nanoribbons