Unconventional quantum Hall effect in Floquet topological insulators

Abstract

We study an unconventional quantum Hall effect for the surface states of ultrathin Floquet topological insulators in a perpendicular magnetic field. The resulting band structure is modified by photon dressing and the topological property is governed by the low-energy dynamics of a single surface. An exchange of symmetric and antisymmetric surface states occurs by reversing the light's polarization. We find a novel quantum Hall state in which the zeroth Landau level undergoes a phase transition from a trivial insulator state, with Hall conductivity ${\sigma }_{yx}=0$ at zero Fermi energy, to a Hall insulator state with ${\sigma }_{yx}=e^2/2h$. These findings open new possibilities for experimentally realizing nontrivial quantum states and unusual quantum Hall plateaux at $(\pm 1/2,\pm 3/2,\pm 5/2,...)e^2/h$.

arXiv commentAccepted in J. Phys. Condensed Matter july 2016

References in corpus (48)

• Two-Dimensional Gas of Massless Dirac Fermions in Graphene
• Topological Insulators
• Topological insulators and superconductors
• Experimental Observation of Quantum Hall Effect and Berry's Phase in Graphene
• Quantum Spin Hall Insulator State in HgTe Quantum Wells
• Photonic Floquet Topological Insulators
• Topological entanglement entropy
• First observation of Spin-Momentum Helical Locking in Bi2Se3 and Bi2Te3, demonstration of Topological-Order at 300K and a realization of topological-transport-regime
• Floquet Topological Insulator in Semiconductor Quantum Wells
• Crossover of Three-Dimensional Topological Insulator of Bi2Se3 to the Two-Dimensional Limit
• Unconventional Integer Quantum Hall effect in graphene
• Observation of Floquet-Bloch states on the surface of a topological insulator
• Transport properties of non-equilibrium systems under the application of light: Photo-induced quantum Hall insulators without Landau levels
• Massive Dirac fermions and spin physics in an ultrathin film of topological insulator
• Topological origin of subgap conductance in insulating bilayer graphene
• Two-dimensional Dirac fermions in a topological insulator: transport in the quantum limit
• Photo-Induced Topological Phase Transition and a Single Dirac-Cone State in Silicene
• Quantum Hall Effect from the Topological Surface States of Strained Bulk HgTe
• Observation of topological surface state quantum Hall effect in an intrinsic three-dimensional topological insulator
• Landau Quantization of Massless Dirac Fermions in Topological Insulator
• Floquet Spectrum and Transport Through an Irradiated Graphene Ribbon
• Anomalous Finite Size Effects on Surface States in the Topological Insulator Bi${}_2$Se${}_3$
• Single valley Dirac fermions in zero-gap HgTe quantum wells
• Out of equilibrium electrons and the Hall conductance of a Floquet topological insulator
• Topological insulators for high performance terahertz to infrared applications
• Magneto-Optical Faraday and Kerr Effects in Topological Insulator Films and in Other Layered Quantized Hall Systems
• Unconventional Quantum Hall Effect and Tunable Spin Hall Effect in MoS2 Trilayers
• Valley polarized quantum Hall effect and topological insulator phase transitions in silicene
• Rubidium-Rich Asymptotic Giant Branch Stars
• Topological insulators in magnetic fields: Quantum Hall effect and edge channels with non-quantized θ-term
• Surface-edge state and half quantized Hall conductance in topological insulators
• Magnetotransport in a two-dimensional electron gas in the presence of spin-orbit interaction
• Engineering Quantum Anomalous Hall Plateaus and Anti-Chiral States with AC Fields
• Giant spin-polarized current in a Dirac fermion system at cyclotron resonance
• Thin topological insulator film in a perpendicular magnetic field
• Magneto-optical conductivity in a topological insulator
• Floquet dynamics in two-dimensional semi-Dirac semimetals and three-dimensional Dirac semimetals
• Imaging two-component nature of Dirac-Landau levels in the topological surface state of Bi2Se3
• Magnetization signatures of light-induced quantum Hall edge states
• Excitons and Optical Absorption on the Surface of a Strong Topological Insulator with a Magnetic Energy Gap
• Off-resonant polarized light-controlled thermoelectric transport in ultrathin topological insulators
• Quantum Hall effect in a singly and doubly connected 3D topological insulator
• Optical properties of magnetically doped ultra-thin topological insulator slabs
• Resonant manifestations of chiral excitons in magnetooptical Faraday and Kerr effects in topological insulator film
• Landau level states on a topological insulator thin film
• Quantum Hall Effect in Thin Films of Three-Dimensional Topological Insulators
• Particle-Hole Asymmetry in Gapped Topological Insulator Surface States
• Thin films of a three-dimensional topological insulator in a strong magnetic field: a microscopic study