Spin splitting of surface states in HgTe quantum wells

Abstract

We report on beating appearance in Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations in conduction band of 18-22nm HgTe quantum wells under applied top-gate voltage. Analysis of the beatings reveals two electron concentrations at the Fermi level arising due to Rashba-like spin splitting of the first conduction subband H1. The difference dN_s in two concentrations as a function of the gate voltage is qualitatively explained by a proposed toy electrostatic model involving the surface states localized at quantum well interfaces. Experimental values of dN_s are also in a good quantitative agreement with self-consistent calculations of Poisson and Schrodinger equations with eight-band kp Hamiltonian. Our results clearly demonstrate that the large spin splitting of the first conduction subband is caused by surface nature of $H1$ states hybridized with the heavy-hole band.

arXiv comment7 pages, 7 figures

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Cited by in corpus (3)

• Band structure of a HgTe-based three-dimensional topological insulator
• Energy spectrum of semimetallic HgTe quantum wells
• Many-particle effects in optical transitions from zero-mode Landau levels in HgTe quantum wells