Regensburg 2013 – scientific programme

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O: Fachverband Oberflächenphysik

O 38: Topological Insulators (jointly with HL, MA, TT)

O 38.4: Talk

Wednesday, March 13, 2013, 10:00–10:15, H16

Transport properties of point contacts between helical edge states — •Christoph P. Orth and Thomas L. Schmidt — University of Basel, Switzerland

We study a 2D topological insulator with helical edges that are connected by local electron tunneling. The edges are in contact with four reservoirs held at different chemical potentials. In contrast to existing theories, we treat the tunneling exactly but apply perturbation theory for the electron-electron interactions to calculate the current. Furthermore, we allow for a slow momentum dependent spin-rotation of the helical fields which can be created, e.g., by Rashba spin-orbit coupling. This allows inelastic spin-flip tunneling processes between the edges. Our results help to understand the interplay between electron-electron and spin-orbit interactions in topological insulators.