Abstract
The presence of edges locally breaks the inversion symmetry of heterostructures and gives rise to lateral (edge) spin-orbit coupling (SOC), which, under some conditions, can lead to the formation of helical edge states. If the edge SOC is strong enough, the helical edge states can penetrate the band gap and be energetically isolated from the bulk-like states. As a result, backward scattering is ...
Abstract
The presence of edges locally breaks the inversion symmetry of heterostructures and gives rise to lateral (edge) spin-orbit coupling (SOC), which, under some conditions, can lead to the formation of helical edge states. If the edge SOC is strong enough, the helical edge states can penetrate the band gap and be energetically isolated from the bulk-like states. As a result, backward scattering is suppressed, dissipationless helical edge channels protected against time-inversion symmetric perturbations emerge, and the system behaves as a two-dimensional topological insulator (TI). However, unlike in previous work on TIs, the mechanism proposed here for the creation of protected helical edge states relies on the strong edge SOC rather than on band inversion. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.87.155306
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