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)

References in corpus (8)

• Quantum Spin Hall Effect and Topological Phase Transition in HgTe Quantum Wells
• Quantum Spin Hall Insulator State in HgTe Quantum Wells
• Nonlocal edge state transport in the quantum spin Hall state
• The Quantum Spin Hall Effect: Theory and Experiment
• Single valley Dirac fermions in zero-gap HgTe quantum wells
• Pressure and temperature driven phase transitions in HgTe quantum wells
• Fine structure of "zero-mode" Landau levels in HgTe/HgCdTe quantum wells
• Temperature-driven transition from a semiconductor to a topological insulator

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