Spin-selective tunneling from nanowires of the candidate topological Kondo insulator SmB6

Abstract

Incorporating relativistic physics into quantum tunneling can lead to exotic behavior such as perfect transmission via Klein tunneling. Here, we probe the tunneling properties of spin-momentum locked relativistic fermions by designing and implementing a tunneling geometry that utilizes nanowires of the topological Kondo insulator candidate, SmB6. The nanowires are attached to the end of scanning tunneling microscope tips, and used to image the bicollinear stripe spin-order in the antiferromagnet Fe1.03Te with a Neel temperature of ~50 K. The antiferromagnetic stripes become invisible above 10 K concomitant with the suppression of the topological surface states. We further demonstrate that the direction of spin-polarization is tied to the tunneling direction. Our technique establishes SmB6 nanowires as ideal conduits for spin-polarized currents.

18 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (5)

• Direct observation of the spin texture in strongly correlated SmB6 as evidence of the topological Kondo insulator
• Hybridization, Inter-Ion Correlation, and Surface States in the Kondo Insulator SmB6
• Kondo Breakdown in Topological Kondo Insulators
• Additional energy scale in SmB${}_6$ at low temperature
• Spin Injection and Inverse Edelstein Effect in the Surface States of Topological Kondo Insulator SmB6

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Visualizing the atomic-scale origin of metallic behavior in Kondo insulators
• Tuning the topological character of half-Heusler systems: A comparative study on Y$T$Bi ($T$ = Pd, Pt)
• How to identify and characterize strongly correlated topological semimetals
• Realizing a topological diode effect on the surface of a topological Kondo insulator
• Correlation Induced Magnetic Topological Phases in Mixed-Valence Compound SmB6