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Weakly-coupled quasi-1D helical modes in disordered 3D topological insulator quantum wires
Disorder remains a key limitation in the search for robust signatures of topological superconductivity in condensed matter. Whereas clean semiconducting quantum wires gave promising results discussed in terms of Majorana bound states, disorder makes the interpretation more complex. Quantum wires of...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group
2017
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5379752/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28374744 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep45276 |
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author | Dufouleur, J. Veyrat, L. Dassonneville, B. Xypakis, E. Bardarson, J. H. Nowka, C. Hampel, S. Schumann, J. Eichler, B. Schmidt, O. G. Büchner, B. Giraud, R. |
author_facet | Dufouleur, J. Veyrat, L. Dassonneville, B. Xypakis, E. Bardarson, J. H. Nowka, C. Hampel, S. Schumann, J. Eichler, B. Schmidt, O. G. Büchner, B. Giraud, R. |
author_sort | Dufouleur, J. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Disorder remains a key limitation in the search for robust signatures of topological superconductivity in condensed matter. Whereas clean semiconducting quantum wires gave promising results discussed in terms of Majorana bound states, disorder makes the interpretation more complex. Quantum wires of 3D topological insulators offer a serious alternative due to their perfectly-transmitted mode. An important aspect to consider is the mixing of quasi-1D surface modes due to the strong degree of disorder typical for such materials. Here, we reveal that the energy broadening γ of such modes is much smaller than their energy spacing Δ, an unusual result for highly-disordered mesoscopic nanostructures. This is evidenced by non-universal conductance fluctuations in highly-doped and disordered Bi2Se3 and Bi(2)Te(3) nanowires. Theory shows that such a unique behavior is specific to spin-helical Dirac fermions with strong quantum confinement, which retain ballistic properties over an unusually large energy scale due to their spin texture. Our result confirms their potential to investigate topological superconductivity without ambiguity despite strong disorder. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5379752 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2017 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-53797522017-04-07 Weakly-coupled quasi-1D helical modes in disordered 3D topological insulator quantum wires Dufouleur, J. Veyrat, L. Dassonneville, B. Xypakis, E. Bardarson, J. H. Nowka, C. Hampel, S. Schumann, J. Eichler, B. Schmidt, O. G. Büchner, B. Giraud, R. Sci Rep Article Disorder remains a key limitation in the search for robust signatures of topological superconductivity in condensed matter. Whereas clean semiconducting quantum wires gave promising results discussed in terms of Majorana bound states, disorder makes the interpretation more complex. Quantum wires of 3D topological insulators offer a serious alternative due to their perfectly-transmitted mode. An important aspect to consider is the mixing of quasi-1D surface modes due to the strong degree of disorder typical for such materials. Here, we reveal that the energy broadening γ of such modes is much smaller than their energy spacing Δ, an unusual result for highly-disordered mesoscopic nanostructures. This is evidenced by non-universal conductance fluctuations in highly-doped and disordered Bi2Se3 and Bi(2)Te(3) nanowires. Theory shows that such a unique behavior is specific to spin-helical Dirac fermions with strong quantum confinement, which retain ballistic properties over an unusually large energy scale due to their spin texture. Our result confirms their potential to investigate topological superconductivity without ambiguity despite strong disorder. Nature Publishing Group 2017-04-04 /pmc/articles/PMC5379752/ /pubmed/28374744 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep45276 Text en Copyright © 2017, The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
spellingShingle | Article Dufouleur, J. Veyrat, L. Dassonneville, B. Xypakis, E. Bardarson, J. H. Nowka, C. Hampel, S. Schumann, J. Eichler, B. Schmidt, O. G. Büchner, B. Giraud, R. Weakly-coupled quasi-1D helical modes in disordered 3D topological insulator quantum wires |
title | Weakly-coupled quasi-1D helical modes in disordered 3D topological insulator quantum wires |
title_full | Weakly-coupled quasi-1D helical modes in disordered 3D topological insulator quantum wires |
title_fullStr | Weakly-coupled quasi-1D helical modes in disordered 3D topological insulator quantum wires |
title_full_unstemmed | Weakly-coupled quasi-1D helical modes in disordered 3D topological insulator quantum wires |
title_short | Weakly-coupled quasi-1D helical modes in disordered 3D topological insulator quantum wires |
title_sort | weakly-coupled quasi-1d helical modes in disordered 3d topological insulator quantum wires |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5379752/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28374744 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep45276 |
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