Observation of the universal magnetoelectric effect in a 3D topological insulator

Abstract

The electrodynamics of topological insulators (TIs) is described by modified Maxwell's equations, which contain additional terms that couple an electric field to a magnetization and a magnetic field to a polarization of the medium, such that the coupling coefficient is quantized in odd multiples of $e^2/2hc$ per surface. Here, we report on the observation of this so-called topological magnetoelectric (TME) effect. We use monochromatic terahertz (THz) spectroscopy of TI structures equipped with a semi-transparent gate to selectively address surface states. In high external magnetic fields, we observe a universal Faraday rotation angle equal to the fine structure constant $\alpha =e^2/\hslash c$ when a linearly polarized THz radiation of a certain frequency passes through the two surfaces of a strained HgTe 3D TI. These experiments give insight into axion electrodynamics of TIs and may potentially be used for a metrological definition of the three basic physical constants.

Submitted 13 March, 2016; 7 pages, 4 figures

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• Routes to realize the axion-insulator phase in MnBi${}_2$Te${}_4$(Bi${}_2$Te${}_3$)${}_n$ family: a perspective
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• Landau level spectroscopy of PbSnSe topological crystalline insulator
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• Magnetization-Induced Phase Transitions on the surface of 3D Topological Insulators
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• Magneto-optical Spectroscopy with RAMBO: A Table-Top 30 T Magnet
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• Orbital Magnetization under an Electric Field and Orbital Magnetoelectric Polarizabilty for a Bilayer Chern System
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• Unveiling the Chiral States in Multi-Weyl Semimetals through Magneto-Optical Spectroscopy
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• Dyadic Greens function for a topological insulator stratified sphere
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