Interface symmetry and spin control in topological insulator-semiconductor heterostructures

Abstract

Heterostructures combining topological and non-topological materials constitute the next frontier in the effort to incorporate topological insulators (TIs) into functional electronic devices. We show that the properties of the interface states appearing at the planar boundary between a topologically-trivial semiconductor (SE) and a TI are controlled by the symmetry of the interface. In contrast to the well-studied helical Dirac surface states, SE-TI interface states exhibit elliptical contours of constant energy and complex spin textures with broken helicity. We derive a general effective Hamiltonian for SE-TI junctions, and propose experimental signatures such as an out of plane spin accumulation under a transport current and the opening of a spectral gap that depends on the direction of an applied in-plane magnetic field.

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• Topological phases of topological insulator thin films
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• Gapped Dirac cones and spin texture in thin film topological insulator
• Conductance of gated junctions as a probe of topological interface states
• Proximity-Induced Superconductivity at Non-Helical Topological Insulator Interfaces
• Anisotropic RKKY interactions mediated by $j=3/2$ quasiparticles in half-Heusler topological semimetal
• Andreev spectroscopy of nonhelical spin textures in topological insulators
• Bound states and controllable currents on Topological Insulator surfaces with extended magnetic defects
• Hard wall edge confinement in 2D topological insulators and the energy of the Dirac Point
• Particle-hole asymmetry and quantum confinement effects on the magneto-optical response of topological insulator thin-films
• Artificial oxide heterostructures with non-trivial topology
• Local density of state oscillations in laterally heterostructured topological insulator-semiconductor systems