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DS: Fachverband Dünne Schichten
DS 46: Topological Insulators I
(Joint session of DS and HL, organized by HL)
DS 46.2: Talk
Thursday, March 10, 2016, 15:00–15:15, H10
Tight-Binding Approach towards an Effective Model for InAs/GaSb Quantum Wells — •Matthias Sitte1, Karin Everschor-Sitte1, and Allan MacDonald2 — 1Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Institut für Physik, Staudingerweg 7, 55128 Mainz — 2The University of Texas at Austin, Department of Physics, 2515 Speedway, Austin, TX 78712-1192
Topological insulators have attracted a great deal of attention as a new quantum state of matter in the last decade. The first realizations of 2D TIs were HgTe/CdTe quantum well heterostructures, but in recent years another class of semiconductor heterostructures --- namely InAs/GaSb quantum wells --- was shown to yield 2D TIs as well. Compared to the HgTe/CdTe-based systems they have many advantages, most prominently a continuously tunable band structure via external electric fields and stronger proximity coupling to superconductors. We perform empirical tight-binding calculations on these systems to study how topological properties are changed by varying external control parameters such as electric fields or well thicknesses.