Engineering artificial topological phases via superlattices

Abstract

The search for new topological materials and states of matter is presently at the forefront of quantum materials research. One powerful approach to novel topological phases beyond the thermodynamic space is to combine different topological/functional materials into a single materials platform in the form of superlattices. However, despite some previous efforts, there has been a significant gap between theories and experiments in this direction. Here, we provide the first detailed set of experimentally-verifiable phase diagrams of topological superlattices composed of archetypal topological insulator (TI), Bi${}_2$Se${}_3$, and normal insulator (NI), In${}_2$Se${}_3$, by combining molecular-level materials control, low-temperature magnetotransport measurements, and field theoretical calculations. We show how the electronic properties of topological superlattices evolve with unit-layer thicknesses and utilize the weak antilocalization effect as a tool to gain quantitative insights into the evolution of conducting channels within each set of heterostructures. This orchestrated study opens the door to the possibility of creating a variety of artificial-topological-phases by combining topological materials with various other functional building blocks such as superconductors and magnetic materials.

References in corpus (19)

• Topological Insulators
• Weyl and Dirac Semimetals in Three Dimensional Solids
• Discovery of a Weyl Fermion Semimetal and Topological Fermi Arcs
• Weyl Semimetal in a Topological Insulator Multilayer
• Crossover of Three-Dimensional Topological Insulator of Bi2Se3 to the Two-Dimensional Limit
• Topological Semimetals
• Thickness-independent transport channels in topological insulator Bi2Se3 thin films
• Weyl superconductors
• A sudden collapse in the transport lifetime across the topological phase transition in $(B{i}_{1-x}I{n}_x{)}_{2}S{e}_3$
• Topological-Metal to Band-Insulator Transition in (Bi1-xInx)2Se3 Thin Films
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• In-Plane Orbital Texture Switch at the Dirac Point in the Topological Insulator Bi2Se3
• Emergence of decoupled surface transport channels in bulk insulating Bi2Se3 thin films
• Superlattices of Bi2Se3/In2Se3: Growth Characteristics and Structural Properties
• Solution to the hole-doping problem and tunable quantum Hall effect in Bi${}_2$Se${}_3$ thin films
• Topological phase diagram and saddle point singularity in a tunable topological crystalline insulator
• Finite-size and composition-driven topological phase transition in (Bi${}_{1-x}$In${}_x$)${}_2$Se${}_3$ thin films
• Tunable inverse topological heterostructure utilizing $(B{i}_{1-x}I{n}_x{)}_{2}S{e}_3$

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Topological junction states and their crystalline network in chiral-symmetric systems: application to graphene nanoribbons
• Miniband engineering and topological phase transitions in topological - normal insulator superlattices
• From classical to quantum regime of topological surface states via defect engineering