Regensburg 2013 – scientific programme

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HL: Fachverband Halbleiterphysik

HL 85: Topological insulators (TT, jointly with DS, HL, MA)

HL 85.7: Talk

Thursday, March 14, 2013, 17:00–17:15, H18

Magnetotransport in disordered HgTe ribbons — •Sven Essert and Klaus Richter — Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Regensburg, 93040 Regensburg, Germany

HgTe quantum wells allow the realization of 2D topological insulator structures. They feature edge states which are protected from backscattering by time-reversal symmetry leading to dissipationless transport in the presence of non-magnetic disorder. We perform transport calculations using the four-band BHZ model to investigate the lifting of this protection by an external magnetic field. We find that the edge state transport is very robust to the application of a perpendicular magnetic field as long as the transport is still in the quasi-one dimensional regime, i.e. as long as the system is far from a topological phase transition to the topologically trivial insulating phase. However, by gating parts of the system to the metallic regime and thereby allowing for true 2d transport, the effect of the magnetic field can be drastically increased.