Topological Floquet states on a Möbius band irradiated by circularly polarised light
arXiv:1408.3087 · doi:10.1016/j.ssc.2014.10.024
Abstract
Topological states of matter in equilibrium, as well as out of equilibrium, have been thoroughly investigated during the last years in condensed-matter and cold-atom systems. However, the geometric topology of the studied samples is usually trivial, such as a ribbon or a cylinder. In this paper, we consider a graphene Möbius band irradiated with circularly polarised light. Interestingly, due to the non-orientability of the Möbius band, a homogeneous quantum Hall effect cannot exist in this system, but the quantum spin Hall effect can. To avoid this restriction, the irradiation is applied in a longitudinal-domain-wall configuration. In this way, the periodic time-dependent driving term tends to generate the quantum anomalous Hall effect. On the other hand, due to the bent geometry of the Möbius band, we expect a strong spin-orbit coupling, which may lead to quantum spin Hall-like topological states. Here, we investigate the competition between these two phenomena upon varying the amplitude and the frequency of the light, for a fixed value of the spin-orbit coupling strength. The topological properties are analysed by identifying the edge states in the Floquet spectrum at intermediate frequencies, when there are resonances between the light frequency and the energy difference between the conduction and valence bands of the graphene system.
9 pages, 5 figures
References in corpus (22)
- Quantum Spin Hall Effect and Topological Phase Transition in HgTe Quantum Wells
- Quantum Spin Hall Insulator State in HgTe Quantum Wells
- Topological Crystalline Insulators
- Topological characterization of periodically-driven quantum systems
- Intrinsic and Rashba Spin-orbit Interactions in Graphene Sheets
- The Quantum Spin Hall Effect: Theory and Experiment
- The space group classification of topological band insulators
- Tunable gauge potential for neutral and spinless particles in driven lattices
- Photo-Induced Topological Phase Transition and a Single Dirac-Cone State in Silicene
- Irradiated graphene as a tunable Floquet topological insulator
- Non-Abelian gauge fields and topological insulators in shaken optical lattices
- Photoinduced transition between conventional and topological insulators in two-dimensional electronic systems
- Modulated Floquet Topological Insulators
- Topological index for periodically driven time-reversal invariant 2D systems
- Large spin-orbit coupling in carbon nanotubes
- Topological phases in a two-dimensional lattice: Magnetic field versus spin-orbit coupling
- Magnetic Structure of Nano-Graphite Moebius Ribbon
- Möbius and twisted graphene nanoribbons: stability, geometry and electronic properties
- Spin states of zigzag-edged Mobius graphene nanoribbons from first principles
- Defects in Graphene-Based Twisted Nanoribbons: Structural, Electronic and Optical Properties
- Novel Electronic States in Graphene Ribbons -Competing Spin and Charge Orders-
- Dynamical competition between Quantum Hall and Quantum Spin Hall effects