Dresden 2011 – scientific programme

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TT: Fachverband Tiefe Temperaturen

TT 59: TR: Topological Insulators 2 (jointly with HL and MA)

TT 59.6: Talk

Friday, March 18, 2011, 12:00–12:15, HSZ 03

Bound states and persistent currents in topological insulator rings — •Patrik Recher and Paolo Michetti — Institut für Theoretische Physik und Astrophysik, Universität Würzburg, 97074 Würzburg

We analyze theoretically the bound state spectrum of an Aharonov Bohm (AB) ring in a two-dimensional topological insulator using the four-band model of HgTe-quantum wells as a concrete example. We calculate analytically the circular helical edge states and their spectrum as well as the bound states evolving out of the bulk spectrum as a function of the applied magnetic flux and dimension of the ring. We also analyze the spin-dependent persistent currents, which can be used to measure the spin of single electrons. We further take into account the Rashba spin-orbit interaction which mixes the spin states and derive its effect on the ring spectrum. The flux tunability of the ring states allows for coherent mixing of the edge- and the spin degrees of freedom of bound electrons which could be exploited for quantum information processing in topological insulator rings.