Search

Weyl semimetal (WSM) thin films possess unique electronic properties that differ from bulk materials. In this article, we study the nonreciprocal ballistic transport of the WSM thin films caused by surface modification. We find that the surface states contribute predominantly to the nonreciprocity, while the bulk states provide a negative correction. Our calculation shows a kind of quantum size effect that the nonreciprocal signal decreases as the WSM film becomes thicker, and diverges when the Fermi energy is near the bottom of a sub-band. On the other hand, it is found that the density of states in multi-layer systems possesses some properties roughly independent of thickness. A single-variable theory is developed to explain it, Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2312.12837

A valley filter capable of generating a valley-polarized current is a crucial element in valleytronics, yet its implementation remains challenging. Here, we propose a valley filter made of a graphene bilayer which exhibits a 1D moir\'{e} pattern in the overlapping region of the two layers controlled by heterostrain. In the presence of a lattice modulation between layers, electrons propagating in one layer can have valley-dependent dissipation due to valley asymmetric interlayer coupling, thus giving rise to a valley-polarized current. Such a process can be described by an effective non-Hermitian theory, in which the valley filter is driven by a valley-resolved non-Hermitian skin effect. Nearly 100\% valley-polarization can be achieved within a wide parameter range and the functionality of the valley filter is electrically tunable. The non-Hermitian topological scenario of the valley filter ensures high tolerance against imperfections such as disorder and edge defects. Our work opens a new route for efficient and robust valley filters while significantly relaxing the stringent implementation requirements., Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures

Non-Hermitian boundaries commonly take place in many open quantum systems locally coupled to a surrounding environment. Here, we reveal a type of non-Hermitian effect induced by non-Hermitian boundaries, the non-Hermitian proximity effect (NHPE), which describes the penetration of non-Hermiticity from the boundary into the bulk. For gapped quantum systems, the NHPE generates in-gap states with imaginary eigenenergies, termed ``imaginary in-gap states". The imaginary in-gap states are localized at the system boundary and decay into the bulk, analogous to the behaviors of the conventional impurity states. However, in contrast to impurity states, the imaginary in-gap states exhibit distinct dynamical behaviors under time-evolution. Moreover, they are physically manifested as corner modes under open boundaries, as a combined result of the non-Hermitian skin effect (NHSE) and NHPE. These results not only uncover implicit similarities between quantum systems with non-Hermitian boundaries and impurity physics, but also point to intriguing non-Hermitian phenomena broadly relevant to open quantum systems., Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures

The identification of topological superconductors usually involves searching for in-gap modes that are protected by topology. However, in the current experimental settings, the smoking-gun evidence of these in-gap modes is still lacking. In this work, we propose to distinguish between two-dimensional conventional s-wave and topological p-wave superconductors by above-gap transport signatures. Our method utilizes the emergence of Tomasch oscillations of quasiparticles in a junction consisting of a superconductor sandwiched between two metallic leads. We demonstrate that the behavior of the oscillations in conductance as a function of the interface barriers provides a distinctive signature for s-wave and p-wave superconductors. Specifically, the oscillations become weaker as the barrier strength increases in s-wave superconductors, while they become more pronounced in p-wave superconductors, which we prove to be a direct manifestation of the pairing symmetries. Our method opens a new route for identifying topological superconductors through above-gap transport., Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures, comments are welcome

The Berry curvature plays a key role in the magnetic transport of topological materials. Yet, it is not clear whether the Berry curvature by itself can give rise to universal transport phenomena with specific scaling behaviors. In this work, based on the semiclassical Boltzmann formalism and the symmetry analysis, we show that the noncentrosymmetric distribution of the Berry curvature generally results in linear magnetoresistivity and thermoconductivity both exhibiting the B-scaling behavior. We then study such kind of topological linear magnetoresistivity in the 2D MnBi2Te4 flakes and the 3D spin-orbit-coupled electron gas, the former showing good agreement with the experimental observations. The difference between our mechanism and the conventional anisotropic magnetoresistance is elucidated. Our theory proposes a universal scenario for the topological linear magnetoresistivity and thermoconductivity and predicts such effects to occur in various materials, which also provides a reasonable explanation for the recent observations of linear magnetoresistivity.

One hallmark of the Weyl semimetal is the emergence of Fermi arcs (FAs) in the surface Brillouin zone that connect the projected Weyl nodes of opposite chirality. The unclosed FAs can give rise to various exotic effects that have attracted tremendous research interest. The configurations of the FAs are usually thought to be determined fully by the band topology of the bulk states, which seems impossible to manipulate. Here, we show that the FAs can be simply modified by a surface gate voltage. Because the penetration length of the surface states depends on the in-plane momentum, a surface gate voltage induces an effective energy dispersion. As a result, a continuous deformation of the surface band can be implemented by tuning the surface gate voltage. In particular, as the saddle point of the surface band meets the Fermi energy, the topological Lifshitz transition takes place for the FAs, during which the Weyl nodes switch their partners connected by the FAs. Accordingly, the magnetic Weyl orbits composed of the FAs on opposite surfaces and chiral Landau bands inside the bulk change its configurations. We show that such an effect can be probed by the nonlocal transport measurements in a magnetic field, in which the switch on and off of the nonlocal conductance by the surface gate voltage signals the Lifshitz transition. Our work opens a new route for manipulating the FAs by surface gates and exploring novel transport phenomena associated with the topological Lifshitz transition., Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures

The pursuit of the non-Hermitian skin effect (NHSE) in various physical systems is of great research interest. Compared with recent progress in non-electronic systems, the implementation of the NHSE in condensed matter physics remains elusive. Here, we show that the NHSE can be engineered in the mesoscopic heterojunctions (system plus reservoir) in which electrons in two channels of the system moving towards each other have asymmetric coupling to those of the reservoir. This makes electrons in the system moving forward and in the opposite direction have unequal lifetimes, and so gives rise to a point-gap spectral topology. Accordingly, the electron eigenstates exhibit NHSE under the open boundary condition, consistent with the description of the generalized Brillouin zone. Such a reservoir-engineered NHSE visibly manifests itself as the nonreciprocal charge current that can be probed by the standard transport measurements. Further, we generalize the scenario to the spin-resolved NHSE, which can be probed by the nonreciprocal spin transport. Our work opens a new research avenue for implementing and detecting the NHSE in electronic mesoscopic systems, which will lead to interesting device applications., Comment: Published version on PRB, 11 pages, 7 figures

The identification of electronic entanglement in solids remains elusive so far, which is owed to the difficulty of implementing spinor-selective beam splitters with tunable polarization direction. Here, we propose to overcome this obstacle by producing and detecting a particular type of entanglement encoded in the Nambu spinor or electron-hole components of quasiparticles excited in quantum Hall edge states. Due to the opposite charge of electrons and holes, the detection of the Nambu spinor translates into a charge-current measurement, which eliminates the need for beam splitters and assures a high detection rate. Conveniently, the spinor correlation function at fixed effective polarizations derives from a single current-noise measurement, with the polarization directions of the detector easily adjusted by coupling the edge states to a voltage gate and a superconductor, both having been realized in experiments. We show that the violation of Bell inequality occurs in a large parameter region. Our work opens a new route for probing quasiparticle entanglement in solid-state physics exempt from traditional beam splitters., Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, the version published on PRL

Unidirectional transport and localized cyclotron motion are two opposite physical phenomena. Here, we study the interplay effects between them on nonreciprocal lattices subject to a magnetic field. We show that, in the long-wavelength limit, the trajectories of the wave packets always form closed orbits in four-dimensional (4D) complex space. Therefore, the semiclassical quantization rules persist despite the nonreciprocity, which preserves real Landau levels. We predict a different type of non-Hermitian spectral transition induced by the spontaneous breaking of the combined mirror-time reversal ($\mathcal{MT}$) symmetry, which generally exists in such systems. An order parameter is proposed to describe the $\mathcal{MT}$ phase transition, not only to determine the $\mathcal{MT}$ phase boundary but also to quantify the degree of $\mathcal{MT}$-symmetry breaking. Such an order parameter can be generally applied to all types of non-Hermitian phase transitions., Comment: 18 pages, including supplemental material, major revision, the version to be published in PRB Letter

Fermi arc surface states, the manifestation of the bulk-edge correspondence in Weyl semimetals, have attracted much research interest. In contrast to the conventional Fermi loop, the disconnected Fermi arcs provide an exotic 2D system for exploration of novel physical effects on the surface of Weyl semimetals. Here, we propose that visible conductance oscillation can be achieved in the planar junctions fabricated on the surface of Weyl semimetal with a pair of Fermi arcs. It is shown that Fabry-P\'{e}rot-type interference inside the 2D junction can generate conductance oscillation with its visibility strongly relying on the shape of the Fermi arcs and their orientation relative to the strip electrodes, the latter clearly revealing the anisotropy of the Fermi arcs. Moreover, we show that the visibility of the oscillating pattern can be significantly enhanced by a magnetic field perpendicular to the surface taking advantage of the bulk-surface connected Weyl orbits. Our work offers an effective way for the identification of Fermi arc surface states through transport measurement and predicts the surface of Weyl semimetal as a novel platform for the implementation of 2D conductance oscillation.

Topological nodal-line semimetals offer an interesting research platform to explore novel phenomena associated with its torus-shaped Fermi surface. Here, we study magnetotransport in the massive nodal-line semimetal with spin-orbit coupling and finite Berry curvature distribution which exists in many candidates. The magnetic field leads to a deformation of the Fermi torus through its coupling to the orbital magnetic moment, which turns out to be the main scenario of the magnetoresistivity (MR) induced by the Berry curvature effect. We show that a small deformation of the Fermi surface yields a positive MR $\propto B^2$, different from the negative MR by pure Berry curvature effect in other topological systems. As the magnetic field increases to a critical value, a topological Lifshitz transition of the Fermi surface can be induced, and the MR inverts its sign at the same time. The temperature dependence of the MR is investigated, which shows a totally different behavior before and after the Lifshitz transition. Our work uncovers a novel scenario of the MR induced solely by the deformation of the Fermi surface and establishes a relation between the Fermi surface topology and the sign of the MR.

The exsitance of three-dimensional Hall effect (3DQHE) due to spontaneous Fermi surface instabilities in strong magnetic field was proposed decades ago, and has stimulated recent progress in experiments. The reports in recent experiments show that the Hall plateaus and vanishing transverse magneto-resistivities (TMRs) (which are two main signatures of 3DQHE) are not easy to be observed in natural materials. And two main different explanations of the slow varying slope like Hall plateaus and non-vanishing TMRs (which can be called as quasi-quantized Hall effect (QQHE)) have been proposed. By studying the magneto-transport with a simple effective periodic 3D system, we show how 3DQHE can be achieved in certain parameter regimes at first. We find two new mechanisms that may give rise to QQHE. One mechanism is the "low" Fermi energy effect, and the other is the "strong" impurity effect. Our studies also proved that the artificial superlattice is an ideal platform for realizing 3DQHE with high layer barrier periodic potential.

Hinge states are the hallmark of the 3D higher-order topological insulator(HOTI). Here, we show that chiral hinge states can be identified by the magnetic field induced Aharonov-Bohm(AB) oscillation of the electron conductance in the interferometer constructed by HOTI and normal metal. Unlike AB interferometer of 3D topological insulator(TI), we find that there are different AB oscillation frequencies for a given direction of magnetic field in 3D HOTI. And the oscillation frequencies are also strongly depending on the direction of magnetic field. The main conclusion in our work is that there exists a universal linear relation between different oscillation frequencies. Here, by constructing an interference model of hinge states loops, we show both analytically and numerically that the linear relation is fulfilled in the HOTI effective model. The four basic frequencies in the work are labeled as $\omega_x$, $\omega_y$, $\omega_{x+y}$, $\omega_{x-y}$ and the main linear relations we demonstrate here are $\omega_{x\pm y}=\omega_x \pm \omega_y$. These results provide an effective way for the identification of the chiral hinge states, and the oscillation signatures are stable with different sample size and bias.

Fermi arc surface states are the hallmark of Weyl semimetals, whose identification is usually challenged by their coexistence with gapless bulk states. Surface transport measurements by fabricating setups on the sample boundary provide a natural solution to this problem. Here, we study the Andreev reflection (AR) in a planar normal metal-superconductor junction on the Weyl semimetal surface with a pair of Fermi arcs. For a conserved transverse momentum, the occurrence of normal reflection depends on the relative orientation between the Fermi arcs and the normal of the junction, which is a direct result of the disconnected Fermi arcs. Consequently, a crossover from the suppressed to perfect AR occurs with varying the orientation of the planar junction, giving rise to a change from double-peak to plateau structure in conductance spectra. Moreover, such a crossover can be facilitated by imposing a magnetic field, making electrons slide along the Fermi arcs so as to switch between two regimes of the AR. Our results provide a decisive signature for the detection of Fermi arcs and open the possibilities of exploring novel phenomenology through their interplay with superconductivity., Comment: 9pages, 5figures

Helical edge states are the hallmark of the quantum spin Hall insulator. Recently, several experiments have observed transport signatures contributed by trivial edge states, making it difficult to distinguish between the topologically trivial and nontrivial phases. Here, we show that helical edge states can be identified by the random-gate-voltage induced $\Phi_0/2$-period oscillation of the averaged electron return probability in the interferometer constructed by the edge states. The random gate voltage can highlight the $\Phi_0/2$-period Al'tshuler-Aronov-Spivak oscillation proportional to $\sin^2(2\pi\Phi/\Phi_0)$ by quenching the $\Phi_0$-period Aharonov-Bohm oscillation. It is found that the helical spin texture induced $\pi$ Berry phase is key to such weak antilocalization behavior with zero return probability at $\Phi=0$. In contrast, the oscillation for the trivial edge states may exhibit either weak localization or antilocalization depending on the strength of the spin-orbit coupling, which have finite return probability at $\Phi=0$. Our results provide an effective way for the identification of the helical edge states. The predicted signature is stabilized by the time-reversal symmetry so that it is robust against disorder and does not require any fine adjustment of system., Comment: 8 pages and 7 figures

Andreev reflection (AR) refers to the electron-hole conversion at the normal metal-superconductor interface. In a three-dimensional metal with spherical Fermi surface, retro (specular) AR can occur with the sign reversal of all three (a single) components of particle velocity. Here, we predict a novel type of AR with the inversion of two velocity components, dubbed "anomalous-trajectory Andreev reflection" (AAR), which can be realized in a class of materials with torus-shaped Fermi surface, such as doped nodal line semimetals. For its toroidal circle perpendicular to the interface, the Fermi torus doubles the AR channels and generates multiple AR processes. In particular, the AAR and retro AR are found to dominate electron transport in the light and heavy doping regimes, respectively. We show that the AAR visibly manifests as a ridge structure in the spatially resolved nonlocal conductance, in contrast to the peak structure for the retro AR. Our work opens a new avenue for the AR spectroscopy and offers a clear transport signature of torus-shaped Fermi surface., Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, including supplemental material

Recently discovered Dirac semimetals (DSMs) with two Dirac nodes, such as Na$_{3}$Bi and Cd$_{2}$As$_{3}$, are regarded to carry the $\mathbb{Z}_{2}$ topological charge in addition to the chiral charge. Here, we study the Floquet phase transition of $\mathbb{Z}_{2}$ topological DSMs subjected to a beam of circularly polarized light. Due to the resulting interplay of the chiral and $\mathbb{Z}_{2}$ charges, the Weyl nodes are not only chirality-dependent but also spin-dependent, which constrains the behaviors in creation and annihilation of the Weyl nodes in pair. Interestingly, we find a novel phase: One spinband is in Weyl semimetal phase while the other spinband is in insulator phase, and we dub it Weyl half-metal (WHM) phase. We further study the spin-dependent transport in a Dirac-Weyl semimetal junction and find a spin filter effect as a fingerprint of existence of the WHM phase. The proposed spin filter effect, based on the WHM bulk band, is highly tunable in a broad parameter regime and robust against magnetic disorder, which is expected to overcome the shortcomings of the previously proposed spin filter based on the topological edge/surface states. Our results offer a unique opportunity to explore the potential applications of topological DSMs in spintronics., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures

Recently, a class of Dirac semimetals, such as \textrm{Na}$_{\mathrm{3}}% $\textrm{Bi} and \textrm{Cd}$_{\mathrm{2}}$\textrm{As}$_{\mathrm{3}}$, are discovered to carry $\mathbb{Z}_{2}$ monopole charges. We present an experimental mechanism to realize the $\mathbb{Z}_{2}$ anomaly in regard to the $\mathbb{Z}_{2}$ topological charges, and propose to probe it by magnetotransport measurement. In analogy to the chiral anomaly in a Weyl semimetal, the acceleration of electrons by a spin bias along the magnetic field can create a $\mathbb{Z}_{2}$ charge imbalance between the Dirac points, the relaxation of which contributes a measurable positive longitudinal spin magnetoconductivity (LSMC) to the system. The $\mathbb{Z}_{2}$ anomaly induced LSMC is a spin version of the longitudinal magnetoconductivity (LMC) due to the chiral anomaly, which possesses all characters of the chiral anomaly induced LMC. While the chiral anomaly in the topological Dirac semimetal is very sensitive to local magnetic impurities, the $\mathbb{Z}_{2}$ anomaly is found to be immune to local magnetic disorder. It is further demonstrated that the quadratic or linear field dependence of the positive LMC is not unique to the chiral anomaly. Base on this, we argue that the periodic-in-$1/B$ quantum oscillations superposed on the positive LSMC can serve as a fingerprint of the $\mathbb{Z}_{2}$ anomaly in topological Dirac semimetals., Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures

Chiral edge state (CES) at zero magnetic field has already been realized in the magnetically doped topological insulator (TI). However, this scheme strongly relies on material breakthroughs, and in fact, most of the TIs cannot be driven into a Chern insulator in this way. Here, we propose to achieve the CESs in 2D TI/ferromagnetic insulator/TI sandwiched structures through spin-selective coupling between the helical edge states of the two TIs. Due to this coupling, the edge states of one spin channel are gapped and those of the other spin channel remain almost gapless, so that the helical edge states of each isolated TI are changed into the CESs. Such CESs can be hopefully achieved in all TI materials, which are immune to magnetic-disorder-induced backscattering. We propose to implement our scheme in the van der Waals heterostructures between monolayer 1T'-WTe$_2$ and bilayer CrI$_3$. The electrical control of magnetism in bilayer CrI$_3$ switches the transport direction of the CESs, which can realize a low-consumption transistor., Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, revised manuscript accepted in Phys. Rev. B

We study the scattering of the Dirac electrons by a point-like nonmagnetic impurity on the surface of a topological insulator, driven by a time-periodic gate voltage. It is found that, due to the doublet degenerate crossing points of different Floquet sidebands, resonant backscattering can happen for the surface electrons, even without breaking the time-reversal (TR) symmetry of the topological surface states (TSSs). The energy spectrum is reshuffled in a way quite different from that for the circularly polarized light, so that new features are exhibited in the Friedel oscillations of the local charge and spin density of states. Although the electron scattering is dramatically modified by the driving voltage, the $1/\rho$ scale law of the spin precession persists for the TSSs. The TR invariant backscattering provides a possible way to engineer the Dirac electronic spectrum of the TSSs, without destroying the unique property of spin-momentum interlocking of the TSSs.

Weyl semimetals (WSMs) host charged Weyl fermions as emergent quasiparticles. We develop a unified analytical theory for the anomalous positive longitudinal magnetoconductance (LMC) in a WSM, which bridges the gap between the classical and ultra-quantum approaches. More interestingly, the LMC is found to exhibit periodic-in-$1/B$ quantum oscillations, originating from the oscillations of the nonequilibrium chiral chemical potential. The quantum oscillations, superposed on the positive LMC, are a remarkable fingerprint of a WSM phase with chiral anomaly, whose observation is a valid criteria for identifying a WSM material. In fact, such quantum oscillations were already observed by several experiments., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures

In this Letter, we first formulate an effective theory, which generally captures long-range proximity effects of a surface system weakly coupled to an s-wave superconductor. The long-range proximity effects include both the emergent long-range pairing and hopping interactions in the surface system. We then model the Rashba spin-orbit-coupled nanowire in proximity with an s-wave superconductor by taking into account the emergent nonlocal effects in the weak-coupling limit. In this limit the induced superconducting pair potential is found much smaller than that of the host superconductor, which is in good agreement with recent experiments. Compared with the previously considered strong coupling limit with local proximity effects, the long-range interactions can significantly modify the topological phase diagram, and considerably lower the threshold magnetic field for the emergence of Majorana zero modes., Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures

We use the tensor network algorithm to show evidences of a non-uniform chiral spin-liquid (CSL) ground state in a frustrated spin-1/2 model on a square lattice, in the regime of moat-like band structure of the lattice, i.e., a band with infinitely degenerate energy minima attained along a closed contour in the Brillouin zone. The analytical description of the state is given by the effective field theory of a topological square-lattice fermionic Chern insulator coupled to the Chern-Simons gauge field. The observed non-uniform CSL has a substantial effect on a nearby free-fermion environment. We show that, in the presence of arbitrarily small spin exchange interaction, the CSL can endow a gauge-field-modulated effective interaction between the environmental fermions. The induced effective interaction can be attractive within a significant parameter region, leading to an instability towards d-wave superconductivity in the fermionic bath., Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures

We numerically study the electrical and thermoelectric transport properties in phosphorene in the presence of both a magnetic field and disorder. The quantized Hall conductivity is similar to that of a conventional two-dimensional electron gas, but the positions of all the Hall plateaus shift to the left due to the spectral asymmetry, in agreement with the experimental observations. The thermoelectric conductivity and Nernst signal exhibit remarkable anisotropy, and the thermopower is nearly isotropic. When a bias voltage is applied between top and bottom layers of phosphorene, both thermopower and Nernst signal are enhanced and their peak values become large., Comment: 8 pages, 9 figures

Excitonic insulators are insulating states formed by the coherent condensation of electron and hole pairs into BCS-like states. Isotropic spatial wave functions are commonly considered for excitonic condensates since the attractive interaction among the electrons and the holes in semiconductors usually leads to $s$-wave excitons. Here, we propose a new type of excitonic insulator that exhibits order parameter with $p+ip$ symmetry and is characterized by a chiral Chern number $C_\textrm{c}=1/2$. This state displays the parity anomaly, which results in two novel topological properties: fractionalized excitations with $\textrm{e}/2$ charge at defects and a spontaneous in-plane magnetization. The topological insulator surface state is a promising platform to realize the topological excitonic insulator. With the spin-momentum locking, the interband optical pumping can renormalize the surface electrons and drive the system towards the proposed $p+ip$ instability., Comment: Published version

The surface states of three-dimensional topological insulators posses the unique property of spin-momentum interlocking. This property gives rise to the interesting inverse Edelstein effect (IEE), in which an applied spin bias $\mu$ is converted to a measurable charge voltage difference $V$. We develop a semiclassical theory for the IEE of the surface states of $\text{Bi}_2\text{Se}_3$ thin films, which is applicable from the ballistic regime to diffusive regime. We find that the IEE efficiency ratio $\gamma=V/\mu$ exhibits universal dependence on sample size, and approaches $\pi/4$ in the ballistic limit and $1$ in the diffusive limit., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures

We develop an analytical theory of the low-frequency $ac$ quantum spin Hall (QSH) effect based upon the scattering matrix formalism. It is shown that the $ac$ QSH effect can be interpreted as a bulk quantum pumping effect. When the electron spin is conserved, the integer-quantized $ac$ spin Hall conductivity can be linked to the winding numbers of the reflection matrices in the electrodes, which also equal to the bulk spin Chern numbers of the QSH material. Furthermore, a possible experimental scheme by using ferromagnetic metals as electrodes is proposed to detect the topological $ac$ spin current by electrical means., Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures

The quantum spin Hall (QSH) effect in the DC regime, which has been intensively researched, relies on the existence of symmetry-protected edge states. Here, we demonstrate that a QSH system behaves quite differently in response to an applied AC electric field, and put forward the idea of AC QSH effect. The AC QSH effect can occur in the bulk without involving the fragile edge states, hence being robust against time-reversal symmetry breaking and disorder. It lays a more solid foundation for practical applications of the two-dimensional topological insulators, in the emerging field of AC spintronics., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures

We numerically study the effect of the edge states on the conductance and thermopower in zigzag phosphorene nanoribbons (ZPNRs) based on the tight-binding model and the scattering-matrix method. It is interesting to find that the band dispersion, conductance, and thermopower can be modulated by applying a bias voltage and boundary potentials to the two layers of the ZPNRs. Under the certain bias voltage, the two-fold degenerate quasi-flat edge bands split perfectly. The conductance can be switched off, and the thermopower around zero energy increases. In addition, when only the boundary potential of the top layer or bottom layer is adjusted, only one edge band bends and merges into the bulk band. The first conductance plateau is strongly decreased to $e^2/h$ around zero energy. Particularly, when the two boundary potentials are adjusted, all the edge bands bend and fully merge into the bulk band, and the bulk energy gap is maximized. More interestingly, a pronounced conductance plateau with $G=0$ is found around zero energy, which is attributable to the opening of the bulk energy gap between the valence and conduction bands. Meanwhile, the thermopower can be enhanced more than twice, compared to that of the perfect ZPNRs. The large magnitude of thermopower is ascribed to the appearance of the bulk energy gap around zero energy. Our results show that the modulated ZPNRs are more reliable in thermoelectric application., Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures

We propose an experimental scheme to realize adiabatic topological spin and valley pumping by using silicene subject to an in-plane $ac$ electric field with amplitude $E_{y}$ and a vertical electric field consisting of an electrostatic component and an $ac$ component with amplitudes $E_{z}^{0}$ and $E_{z}^{1}$. By tuning $E_{z}^{0}$ and $E_{z}^{1}$, topological valley pumping or spin-valley pumping can be achieved. The noisefree valley and spin currents generated could be useful in valleytronic and spintronic applications. This work demonstrates that bulk topological spin or valley pumping is a general characteristic effect of two-dimensional topological insulators, irrelevant to the edge state physics., Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures

The effect of electron-electron interaction on Floquet topological superconducting chains is investigated numerically through full diagonalization and time evolution. The preservation of topology in the weak interacting regime is represented by a many-body form of the Majorana survival probability, and the emergence of chaos is characterized using the level statistics. In the presence of weak interaction, there appear a multitude of avoided crossings in quasi-energy spectra, and the resulting chaos is not full but can coexist with the topology. Strong interaction will lead the system into a topologically trivial and fully chaotic phase.

Combined with magnetotransport measurements and first-principles calculations, we systematically investigated the effects of Bi incorporation on the electrical properties of the undoped InP1-xBix epilayers with 0

The point contact tunnel junctions between a one-dimensional topological superconductor and single-channel quantum Hall (QH) liquids are investigated theoretically with bosonization technology and renormalization group methods. For the $\nu=1$ integer QH liquid, the universal low-energy tunneling transport is governed by the perfect Andreev reflection fixed point with quantized zero-bias conductance $G(0)=2e^{2}/h$, which can serve as a definitive fingerprint of the existence of a Majorana fermion. For the $\nu =1/m$ Laughlin fractional QH liquids, its transport is governed by the perfect normal reflection fixed point with vanishing zero-bias conductance and bias-dependent conductance $G(V) \sim V^{m-2}$. Our setup is within reach of present experimental techniques., Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure, Added references,Corrected typos

Anyons have recently received great attention due to their promising application in topological quantum computation. The best validated system that enjoys the anyonic excitations are the Laughlin states. The quasi-particles in Laughlin states are neither fermions nor bosons but possess the discrete statistical angle ? = ?=m, with m being an integer. Here we report a possible realization of the universal Abelian anyons, whose statistical angle can be tuned continuously by external parameters and can take any arbitrary values interpolating ? = 0 and ? = ?. The proposed setup is the surface state of a three dimensional topological insulator driven by an amplitude-modulated circularly-polarized light. It is found that the external field leads to a particular Floquet phase, which is a two-spatial-dimensional analogy of the Weyl semimetal phase in the Floquet first Brillouin zone. The chiral anomaly of this phase results in a U(1) Chern-Simons gauge theory with a tunable Floquet Chern number. Owing to this underlying gauge field theory, the irradiated surface of topological insulator constitutes a promising platform for the observation of the universal anyons.

We investigate the Kondo effect in the two-dimensional electron system with a non-trivial quadratic energy band crossing point. We show that the Kondo effect can induce a new hybrid topological insulator phase which is a coexistence state of the quantum anomalous Hall effect and the TRSbroken quantum spin Hall effect. This hybrid topological insulator exhibits not only a quantized charge Hall current but also a net spin current, which are localized at the edge boundaries. This peculiar topological state arises due to the interplay of two marginally relevant operators, i.e., the Kondo-coupling between the electrons and the local magnetic moment and the electron-electron interaction in the two-dimensional system.

Quantum spin Hall insulator is characterized by the helical edge states, with the spin polarization of electron being locked to its direction of motion. Although the edge-state conduction has been observed, unambiguous evidence of the helical spin texture is still lacking. Here, we investigate the coherent edge-state transport in an interference loop pinched by two point contacts. Due to the helical character, the forward inter-edge scattering enforces a $\pi$ spin rotation. Two successive processes can only produce a nontrivial $2\pi$ or trivial $0$ spin rotation, which can be controlled by the Rashba spin-orbit coupling. The nontrivial spin rotation results in a geometric $\pi$ Berry phase, which can be detected by a $\pi$ phase shift of the conductance oscillation relative to the trivial case. Our results provide a smoking gun evidence for the helical spin texture of the edge states. Moreover, it also provides the opportunity to all-electrically explore the trajectory-dependent spin Berry phase in condensed matter., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, version to be published in Phys. Rev. Lett

We show that by integrating out the electric field and incorporating proper boundary conditions, a semiclassical Boltzmann equation can describe electron transport properties, continuously from the diffusive to ballistic regimes. General analytical formulas of the conductance in $D=1,2,3$ dimensions are obtained, which recover the Boltzmann-Drude formula and Landauer-B\"uttiker formula in the diffusive and ballistic limits, respectively. This intuitive and efficient approach can be applied to investigate the interplay of system size and impurity scattering in various charge and spin transport phenomena., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures

Based on the Floquet scattering theory, we analytically investigate the topological spin pumping for an exactly solvable model. Floquet spin Chern numbers are introduced to characterize the periodically time-dependent system. The topological spin pumping remains robust both in the presence and in the absence of the time-reversal symmetry, as long as the pumping frequency is smaller than the band gap, where the electron transport involves only the Floquet evanescent modes in the pump. For the pumping frequency greater than the band gap, where the propagating modes in the pump participate in the electron transport, the spin pumping rate decays rapidly, marking the end of the topological pumping regime., Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures

Topological insulators (TIs) are a new quantum state of matter discovered recently, which are characterized by unconventional bulk topological invariants. Proposals for practical applications of the TIs are mostly based upon their metallic surface or edge states. Here, we report the theoretical discovery of a bulk quantum pumping effect in a two-dimensional TI electrically modulated in adiabatic cycles. In each cycle, an amount of spin proportional to the sample width can be pumped into a nonmagnetic electrode, which is attributed to nonzero spin Chern numbers $C_{\pm}$. Moreover, by using a half-metallic electrode, universal quantized charge pumping conductivities $-C_{\pm}e^2/h$ can be measured. This discovery paves the way for direct investigation of the robust topological properties of the TIs., Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures

We have systematically investigated the optical properties of the InP1-xBix ternary alloys with 0

The Weyl semimetal (WSM) is a novel topological gapless state with promises exotic transport due to chiral anomaly. Recently, a family of nonmagnetic WSM candidates including TaAs, NbAs, NbP etc is confirmed by first principle calculation and experiments. The TaAs family are reported to display the large unsaturated magnetoresistance (XMR), which have not yet been explained. Here, we give a theoretical calculation of XMR based on the extended effective-medium approach to Weyl semimetals. We predict the power law of XMR at high magnetic field and the "turn-on" magnetic field, which are well in agreement with experiments data. Furthermore, we investigate the $\theta$-dependence magnetoresistance and find the transition between the postive XMR and the negative magnetoresistance induced by chiral anomaly, which should be confirmed by further experiments., Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures