Regensburg 2013 – scientific programme

Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Updates | Downloads | Help

MA: Fachverband Magnetismus

MA 4: Topological Insulators 1 (jointly with DS,HL,O,TT)

MA 4.1: Invited Talk

Monday, March 11, 2013, 09:30–10:00, H10

Breaking time reversal symmetry in topological insulators — •Jagadeesh Moodera — Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA

Breaking time reversal symmetry in a topological insulator (TI) can lead to many exotic properties, such as image magnetic monopole, topological magneto-electric effects as well as Majorana Fermions in superconducting TIs (STI). Recently Gedik*s group in MIT demonstrated that manipulating the magnetic properties via ultrashort light pulses, selectively exciting the spin states of the surface state by exploiting its spin texture to induce a transient magnetic state. Using linearly polarized light in a pump-probe experiment unusual behavior was seen by Muenzenberg group in Gottingen University. The TI surface state can be magnetically manipulated by proximity effect. The proximity-induced ferromagnetism in a TI/ferromagnetic insulator heterostructure breaks the time reversal symmetry in the TI: a large uniformly induced surface exchange gap appears on the TI without introducing scattering centers, thus keeping intact the transport of spin-momentum locked surface electrons as well as the superconducting pairing in an STI. This TI/ferromagnetic insulator bilayer system showed an induced interface magnetic moment accompanied by an unusual planar hysteresis magnetoresistance demonstrating the magnetic manipulation of the surface channel. This research is supported by ONR, NSF.