Temperature-induced topological phase transition in HgTe quantum wells

Abstract

We report a direct observation of temperature-induced topological phase transition between trivial and topological insulator in HgTe quantum well. By using a gated Hall bar device, we measure and represent Landau levels in fan charts at different temperatures and we follow the temperature evolution of a peculiar pair of "zero-mode" Landau levels, which split from the edge of electron-like and hole-like subbands. Their crossing at critical magnetic field $B_c$ is a characteristic of inverted band structure in the quantum well. By measuring the temperature dependence of $B_c$, we directly extract the critical temperature $T_c$, at which the bulk band-gap vanishes and the topological phase transition occurs. Above this critical temperature, the opening of a trivial gap is clearly observed.

5 pages + Supplemental Materials; Phys. Rev. Lett. (accepted)

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• Helical Liquids in Semiconductors
• Realistic picture of helical edge states in HgTe quantum wells
• High-frequency nonlinear transport and photogalvanic effects in two-dimensional topological insulators
• Massless Dirac fermions in III-V semiconductor quantum wells
• Perspectives of HgTe Topological Insulators for Quantum Hall Metrology
• Topological states in superlattices of HgTe-class materials for engineering three-dimensional flat bands
• Unconventional Reentrant Quantum Hall Effect in a HgTe/CdHgTe Double Quantum Well
• Topological semimetallic phase in PbO${}_2$ promoted by temperature
• Quantitative theory of backscattering in topological HgTe and (Hg,Mn)Te quantum wells: acceptor states, Kondo effect, precessional dephasing, and bound magnetic polaron
• Disorder-induced phase transition in Dirac systems beyond the linear approximation
• Engineering topological phases in triple HgTe/CdTe quantum wells
• Avoided level crossing at the magnetic field induced topological phase transition due to spin-orbital mixing
• Many-particle effects in optical transitions from zero-mode Landau levels in HgTe quantum wells
• Terahertz Magnetospectroscopy of Cyclotron Resonances from Topological Surface States in Thick Films of Cd${}_x$Hg${}_{1-x}$Te
• Feasibility of lasing in the GaAs Reststrahlen band with HgTe multiple quantum well laser diodes
• Quantum spin Hall effect in III-V semiconductors at elevated temperatures: advancing topological electronics
• Multi-probe analysis to separate edge currents from bulk currents in quantum spin Hall insulators and to analyze their temperature dependence
• Universal transparency and fine band structure near the Dirac point in HgTe quantum wells
• Disorder-induced phase transitions in double HgTe quantum wells
• Density of states measurements for heavy subband of holes in HgTe quantum wells
• Precise determination of critical points of topological phase transitions via shift current in two-dimensional inversion asymmetric insulators
• Gate tunable terahertz cyclotron emission from two-dimensional Dirac fermions
• Quasiparticle picture of topological phase transitions induced by interactions
• HgTe quantum wells for QHE metrology under soft cryomagnetic conditions: permanent magnets and liquid ${}^{4}He$ temperatures
• Many-particle hybridization of optical transitions from zero-mode Landau levels in HgTe quantum wells
• Large inverted band-gap in strained three-layer InAs/GaInSb quantum wells