Topological edge state engineering with high-frequency electromagnetic radiation

Abstract

We outline here how strong light-matter interaction can be used to induce quantum phase transition between normal and topological phases in two-dimensional topological insulators. We consider the case of a HgTe quantum well, in which band inversion occurs above a critical value of the well thickness, and demonstrate that coupling between electron states and the $E$ field from an off-resonant linearly polarized laser provides a powerful tool to control topological transitions, even for a thickness of the quantum well that is below the critical value. We also show that topological phase properties of the edge states, including their group velocity, can be tuned in a controllable way by changing the intensity of the laser field. These findings open up the possibility for new experimental means with which to investigate topological insulators and shed new light on topological-insulator-based technologies that are under active discussion.

9 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (21)

• Quantum Spin Hall Effect and Topological Phase Transition in HgTe Quantum Wells
• Quantum Spin Hall Insulator State in HgTe Quantum Wells
• Topological Photonics
• Photovoltaic Hall effect in graphene
• Topological characterization of periodically-driven quantum systems
• The Magnus expansion and some of its applications
• The Quantum Spin Hall Effect: Theory and Experiment
• Driven quantum transport on the nanoscale
• Topological Quantum Matter with Ultracold Gases in Optical Lattices
• Irradiated graphene as a tunable Floquet topological insulator
• Topological Polaritons
• Photoinduced transition between conventional and topological insulators in two-dimensional electronic systems
• Tuning laser-induced bandgaps in graphene
• Disorder-induced Floquet Topological Insulators
• Out of equilibrium electrons and the Hall conductance of a Floquet topological insulator
• Effective Theory of Floquet Topological Transitions
• Dissipative Floquet Topological Systems
• Modulated Floquet Topological Insulators
• Radiation effects on the electronic structure of bilayer graphene
• Materials design from non-equilibrium steady states: driven graphene as a tunable semiconductor with topological properties
• Magnetization signatures of light-induced quantum Hall edge states

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Parity-Time Symmetry in Non-Hermitian Complex Optical Media
• Orbital Floquet Engineering of Exchange Interactions in Magnetic Materials
• Engineering of topological phases in driven thin topological insulator: Structure inversion asymmetry effect
• Optically induced topological states on the surface of mercury telluride
• Impact of high-frequency pumping on anomalous finite-size effects in three-dimensional topological insulators
• Structure of surface electronic states in strained mercury telluride
• Laser induced surface magnetization in Floquet-Weyl semimetals
• Light-induced switch based on edge modes in irradiated thin topological insulators
• Floquet-Weyl semimetals generated by an optically resonant interband-transition