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Scaling behavior of the quantum phase transition from a quantum-anomalous-Hall insulator to an axion insulator

The phase transitions from one plateau to the next plateau or to an insulator in quantum Hall and quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) systems have revealed universal scaling behaviors. A magnetic-field-driven quantum phase transition from a QAH insulator to an axion insulator was recently demonstrated in m...

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Autores principales: Wu, Xinyu, Xiao, Di, Chen, Chui-Zhen, Sun, Jian, Zhang, Ling, Chan, Moses H. W., Samarth, Nitin, Xie, X. C., Lin, Xi, Chang, Cui-Zu
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7483742/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32913228
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18312-z
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author Wu, Xinyu
Xiao, Di
Chen, Chui-Zhen
Sun, Jian
Zhang, Ling
Chan, Moses H. W.
Samarth, Nitin
Xie, X. C.
Lin, Xi
Chang, Cui-Zu
author_facet Wu, Xinyu
Xiao, Di
Chen, Chui-Zhen
Sun, Jian
Zhang, Ling
Chan, Moses H. W.
Samarth, Nitin
Xie, X. C.
Lin, Xi
Chang, Cui-Zu
author_sort Wu, Xinyu
collection PubMed
description The phase transitions from one plateau to the next plateau or to an insulator in quantum Hall and quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) systems have revealed universal scaling behaviors. A magnetic-field-driven quantum phase transition from a QAH insulator to an axion insulator was recently demonstrated in magnetic topological insulator sandwich samples. Here, we show that the temperature dependence of the derivative of the longitudinal resistance on magnetic field at the transition point follows a characteristic power-law that indicates a universal scaling behavior for the QAH to axion insulator phase transition. Similar to the quantum Hall plateau to plateau transition, the QAH to axion insulator transition can also be understood by the Chalker–Coddington network model. We extract a critical exponent κ ~ 0.38 ± 0.02 in agreement with recent high-precision numerical results on the correlation length exponent of the Chalker–Coddington model at ν ~ 2.6, rather than the generally-accepted value of 2.33.
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spelling pubmed-74837422020-09-21 Scaling behavior of the quantum phase transition from a quantum-anomalous-Hall insulator to an axion insulator Wu, Xinyu Xiao, Di Chen, Chui-Zhen Sun, Jian Zhang, Ling Chan, Moses H. W. Samarth, Nitin Xie, X. C. Lin, Xi Chang, Cui-Zu Nat Commun Article The phase transitions from one plateau to the next plateau or to an insulator in quantum Hall and quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) systems have revealed universal scaling behaviors. A magnetic-field-driven quantum phase transition from a QAH insulator to an axion insulator was recently demonstrated in magnetic topological insulator sandwich samples. Here, we show that the temperature dependence of the derivative of the longitudinal resistance on magnetic field at the transition point follows a characteristic power-law that indicates a universal scaling behavior for the QAH to axion insulator phase transition. Similar to the quantum Hall plateau to plateau transition, the QAH to axion insulator transition can also be understood by the Chalker–Coddington network model. We extract a critical exponent κ ~ 0.38 ± 0.02 in agreement with recent high-precision numerical results on the correlation length exponent of the Chalker–Coddington model at ν ~ 2.6, rather than the generally-accepted value of 2.33. Nature Publishing Group UK 2020-09-10 /pmc/articles/PMC7483742/ /pubmed/32913228 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18312-z Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Wu, Xinyu
Xiao, Di
Chen, Chui-Zhen
Sun, Jian
Zhang, Ling
Chan, Moses H. W.
Samarth, Nitin
Xie, X. C.
Lin, Xi
Chang, Cui-Zu
Scaling behavior of the quantum phase transition from a quantum-anomalous-Hall insulator to an axion insulator
title Scaling behavior of the quantum phase transition from a quantum-anomalous-Hall insulator to an axion insulator
title_full Scaling behavior of the quantum phase transition from a quantum-anomalous-Hall insulator to an axion insulator
title_fullStr Scaling behavior of the quantum phase transition from a quantum-anomalous-Hall insulator to an axion insulator
title_full_unstemmed Scaling behavior of the quantum phase transition from a quantum-anomalous-Hall insulator to an axion insulator
title_short Scaling behavior of the quantum phase transition from a quantum-anomalous-Hall insulator to an axion insulator
title_sort scaling behavior of the quantum phase transition from a quantum-anomalous-hall insulator to an axion insulator
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7483742/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32913228
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18312-z
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