Controlling a quantum point junction on the surface of an antiferromagnetic topological insulator

Abstract

The abstract notion of topology has led to profound insights into real materials. Notably, the surface and edges of topological materials can host physics, such as unidirectional charge or spin transport, that is unavailable in isolated one- and two-dimensional systems. However, to fully control the mixing and interference of edge-state wave functions, one needs robust and tunable junctions. We propose to achieve this control using an antiferromagnetic topological insulator that supports two distinct types of gapless unidirectional channels on its surface, one from antiferromagnetic domain walls and the other from single-height steps. The distinct geometric nature of these edge modes allows them to intersect robustly to form quantum point junctions, and their presence at the surface makes them subject to control by magnetic and electrostatic tips like those used in scanning probe microscopes. Prospects for realizing such junctions are encouraged by recent material candidate proposals, potentially leading to exciting applications in quantum computing and sensing.

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Cited by in corpus (14)

• Colloquium: Quantum anomalous Hall effect
• Creation of Chiral Interface Channels for Quantized Transport in Magnetic Topological Insulator Multilayer Heterostructures
• Transport, refraction and interface arcs in junctions of Weyl semimetals
• Transmission and conductance across junctions of isotropic and anisotropic three-dimensional semimetals
• Engineering magnetic topological insulators in Eu${}_5{M}_2{X}_6$ Zintls
• Electrically Controlled Anomalous Hall Effect and Orbital Magnetization in Topological Magnet MnBi2Te4
• Intrinsic magnetic topological insulators of the MnBi${}_2$Te${}_4$ family
• Emergent Energy Dissipation in Quantum Limit
• Layer Zero-Line Modes in Antiferromagnetic Topological Insulators
• Spectral features of magnetic domain walls on surface of 3D topological insulators
• Antiferromagnetic topological insulator with selectively gapped Dirac cones
• Magnetic topological transistor exploiting layer-selective transport
• Towards a theory of surface orbital magnetization
• Topological properties of domain walls in antiferromagnetic topological insulators