Cargando…

Quantum confinement of the Dirac surface states in topological-insulator nanowires

The non-trivial topology of three-dimensional topological insulators dictates the appearance of gapless Dirac surface states. Intriguingly, when made into a nanowire, quantum confinement leads to a peculiar gapped Dirac sub-band structure. This gap is useful for, e.g., future Majorana qubits based o...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Münning, Felix, Breunig, Oliver, Legg, Henry F., Roitsch, Stefan, Fan, Dingxun, Rößler, Matthias, Rosch, Achim, Ando, Yoichi
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7884718/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33589609
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-21230-3
_version_ 1783651469861322752
author Münning, Felix
Breunig, Oliver
Legg, Henry F.
Roitsch, Stefan
Fan, Dingxun
Rößler, Matthias
Rosch, Achim
Ando, Yoichi
author_facet Münning, Felix
Breunig, Oliver
Legg, Henry F.
Roitsch, Stefan
Fan, Dingxun
Rößler, Matthias
Rosch, Achim
Ando, Yoichi
author_sort Münning, Felix
collection PubMed
description The non-trivial topology of three-dimensional topological insulators dictates the appearance of gapless Dirac surface states. Intriguingly, when made into a nanowire, quantum confinement leads to a peculiar gapped Dirac sub-band structure. This gap is useful for, e.g., future Majorana qubits based on TIs. Furthermore, these sub-bands can be manipulated by a magnetic flux and are an ideal platform for generating stable Majorana zero modes, playing a key role in topological quantum computing. However, direct evidence for the Dirac sub-bands in TI nanowires has not been reported so far. Here, using devices fabricated from thin bulk-insulating (Bi(1−x)Sb(x))(2)Te(3) nanowires we show that non-equidistant resistance peaks, observed upon gate-tuning the chemical potential across the Dirac point, are the unique signatures of the quantized sub-bands. These TI nanowires open the way to address the topological mesoscopic physics, and eventually the Majorana physics when proximitized by an s-wave superconductor.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-7884718
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2021
publisher Nature Publishing Group UK
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-78847182021-02-25 Quantum confinement of the Dirac surface states in topological-insulator nanowires Münning, Felix Breunig, Oliver Legg, Henry F. Roitsch, Stefan Fan, Dingxun Rößler, Matthias Rosch, Achim Ando, Yoichi Nat Commun Article The non-trivial topology of three-dimensional topological insulators dictates the appearance of gapless Dirac surface states. Intriguingly, when made into a nanowire, quantum confinement leads to a peculiar gapped Dirac sub-band structure. This gap is useful for, e.g., future Majorana qubits based on TIs. Furthermore, these sub-bands can be manipulated by a magnetic flux and are an ideal platform for generating stable Majorana zero modes, playing a key role in topological quantum computing. However, direct evidence for the Dirac sub-bands in TI nanowires has not been reported so far. Here, using devices fabricated from thin bulk-insulating (Bi(1−x)Sb(x))(2)Te(3) nanowires we show that non-equidistant resistance peaks, observed upon gate-tuning the chemical potential across the Dirac point, are the unique signatures of the quantized sub-bands. These TI nanowires open the way to address the topological mesoscopic physics, and eventually the Majorana physics when proximitized by an s-wave superconductor. Nature Publishing Group UK 2021-02-15 /pmc/articles/PMC7884718/ /pubmed/33589609 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-21230-3 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 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
Münning, Felix
Breunig, Oliver
Legg, Henry F.
Roitsch, Stefan
Fan, Dingxun
Rößler, Matthias
Rosch, Achim
Ando, Yoichi
Quantum confinement of the Dirac surface states in topological-insulator nanowires
title Quantum confinement of the Dirac surface states in topological-insulator nanowires
title_full Quantum confinement of the Dirac surface states in topological-insulator nanowires
title_fullStr Quantum confinement of the Dirac surface states in topological-insulator nanowires
title_full_unstemmed Quantum confinement of the Dirac surface states in topological-insulator nanowires
title_short Quantum confinement of the Dirac surface states in topological-insulator nanowires
title_sort quantum confinement of the dirac surface states in topological-insulator nanowires
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7884718/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33589609
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-21230-3
work_keys_str_mv AT munningfelix quantumconfinementofthediracsurfacestatesintopologicalinsulatornanowires
AT breunigoliver quantumconfinementofthediracsurfacestatesintopologicalinsulatornanowires
AT legghenryf quantumconfinementofthediracsurfacestatesintopologicalinsulatornanowires
AT roitschstefan quantumconfinementofthediracsurfacestatesintopologicalinsulatornanowires
AT fandingxun quantumconfinementofthediracsurfacestatesintopologicalinsulatornanowires
AT roßlermatthias quantumconfinementofthediracsurfacestatesintopologicalinsulatornanowires
AT roschachim quantumconfinementofthediracsurfacestatesintopologicalinsulatornanowires
AT andoyoichi quantumconfinementofthediracsurfacestatesintopologicalinsulatornanowires