Work

Hinged quantum spin Hall effect in antiferromagnetic topological insulators

Year: 2020

Type: article

Abstract: In this work, we predict a hinged quantum spin Hall (HQSH) effect featured by a pair of counterpropagating chiral hinge modes in antiferromagnetic (AFM) topological insulator (TI) multilayers. This pair of chiral hinge modes are localized on the hinges of the top and bottom surfaces of the AFM TI multilayers. Unlike the conventional QSH effect, the HQSH effect survives the breaking of time-reversal symmetry (TRS) and thus represents a different kind of topological phenomenon. The pair of counterpropagating chiral hinge modes are sustainable to inelastic scattering and TRS-breaking disorder, which can be observed in macroscopic samples. We show that this HQSH effect can be understood as a three-dimensional generalization of the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model. At last, we propose that the HQSH effect can be realized in newly found intrinsic AFM TI materials $({\mathrm{MnBi}}_{2}{\mathrm{Te}}_{4}{)}_{m}{({\mathrm{Bi}}_{2}{\mathrm{Te}}_{3})}_{n}$ or magnetic-doped TI multilayers by current experimental setups.

Source: Physical review. B./Physical review. B

DOI: 10.1103/physrevb.101.041404

Authors: Yue-Ran Ding, Dong-Hui Xu, Chui-Zhen Chen, X. C. Xie