arXivDaily arXiv每日学术速递 周一至周五更新
arXiv 0908.1247cond-mat.mtrl-sci
收藏

利用手征自旋织构保护拓扑表面态不受后向散射影响

Topological Surface States Protected From Backscattering by Chiral Spin Texture

Pedram Roushan, Jungpil Seo, Colin V. Parker, Y. S. Hor, D. Hsieh, Dong Qian, Anthony Richardella, M. Z. Hasan, R. J. Cava, Ali Yazdani

摘要:

拓扑绝缘体是一类新的绝缘体,它通过强自旋轨道耦合产生电子激发的体隙。这些新型材料与普通绝缘体的区别在于存在无间隙金属边界态,类似于量子霍尔系统中的手性边缘模式,但具有非常规的自旋纹理。最近,实验和理论研究为二维和三维拓扑绝缘体及其在半导体量子阱结构和几种Bi基化合物中的新颖边缘态和表面态提供了强有力的证据。这些自旋纹理边界态的一个关键特征是它们对自旋无关散射不敏感,这可以保护它们免受反向散射和局部化的影响。这些手征态对于基于自旋的电子学是潜在有用的,其中长自旋相干性是关键的,并且还对于量子计算应用是潜在有用的,其中拓扑保护可以实现容错信息处理。在这里,我们使用扫描隧道显微镜(STM)可视化的三维拓扑绝缘体BiSb的无隙表面状态,并检查他们的散射行为所造成的无序在这个化合物中的随机合金化。结合STM和角分辨光电子能谱,我们表明,尽管强原子尺度的无序,反向散射状态的相反的动量和相反的自旋是不存在的。我们对自旋选择性散射的观察表明,这些状态的手性性质保护了载流子的自旋,因此它们有可能用于自旋电子器件中的相干自旋输运。

英文摘要:

Topological insulators are a new class of insulators in which a bulk gap for electronic excitations is generated by strong spin orbit coupling. These novel materials are distinguished from ordinary insulators by the presence of gapless metallic boundary states, akin to the chiral edge modes in quantum Hall systems, but with unconventional spin textures. Recently, experiments and theoretical efforts have provided strong evidence for both two- and three-dimensional topological insulators and their novel edge and surface states in semiconductor quantum well structures and several Bi-based compounds. A key characteristic of these spin-textured boundary states is their insensitivity to spin-independent scattering, which protects them from backscattering and localization. These chiral states are potentially useful for spin-based electronics, in which long spin coherence is critical, and also for quantum computing applications, where topological protection can enable fault-tolerant information processing. Here we use a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) to visualize the gapless surface states of the three-dimensional topological insulator BiSb and to examine their scattering behavior from disorder caused by random alloying in this compound. Combining STM and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, we show that despite strong atomic scale disorder, backscattering between states of opposite momentum and opposite spin is absent. Our observation of spin-selective scattering demonstrates that the chiral nature of these states protects the spin of the carriers; they therefore have the potential to be used for coherent spin transport in spintronic devices.

机构、总结、中文摘要均由AI分析而来,可能存在错误,请以论文正文为准。

↑