Dirac quantum well engineering on the surface of topological insulator

Abstract

We investigate a quantum well that consists of a thin topological insulator sandwiched between two trivial insulators. More specifically, we consider smooth interfaces between these different types of materials such that the interfaces host not only the chiral interface states, whose existence is dictated by the bulk-edge correspondence, but also massive Volkov-Pankratov states. We investigate possible hybridization between these interface states as a function of the width of the topological material and of the characteristic interface size. Most saliently, we find a strong qualitative difference between an extremely weak effect on the chiral interface states and a more common hybridization of the massive Volkov-Pankratov states that can be easily understood in terms of quantum tunneling in the framework of the model of a (Dirac) quantum well we introduce here.

arXiv commentaccepted for publication in PRB (13 pages with appendix + 7 figures)

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Cited by in corpus (8)

• Massive and topological surface states in tensile strained HgTe
• Observation of Weyl and Dirac fermions at smooth topological Volkov-Pankratov heterojunctions
• Surface plasmonics of Weyl semimetals
• Miniband engineering and topological phase transitions in topological - normal insulator superlattices
• Photoinduced metallic Volkov-Pankratov states in semi-Dirac material
• Topological interface states -- a possible path towards a Landau-level laser in the THz regime
• Volkov-Pankratov states on the edge of a quantum spin Hall system
• Volkov-Pankratov states in a driven semimetal for a generic interface