Quantized spin Hall conductance in a magnetically doped two dimensional topological insulator

Soon after the discovery of the quantum spin Hall effect, it has been predicted that a magnetic impurity in the presence of strong Coulomb interactions will destroy the quantum spin Hall effect. However, the fate of the quantum spin Hall effect in the presence of magnetic impurities has not yet been...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature communications 2021-05, Vol.12 (1), p.3193-3193, Article 3193
Main Authors: Shamim, Saquib, Beugeling, Wouter, Shekhar, Pragya, Bendias, Kalle, Lunczer, Lukas, Kleinlein, Johannes, Buhmann, Hartmut, Molenkamp, Laurens W.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
639/766/119/2792/4128
639/766/119/2794
Alloying
Conductance
Electromagnetism
Electrons
Fermions
Humanities and Social Sciences
Impurities
Kondo effect
Low temperature
Low temperature resistance
Magnetic fields
Manganese
Mercury (metal)
multidisciplinary
Quantum Hall effect
Quantum wells
Resistance
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Topological insulators
Wells
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Summary:Soon after the discovery of the quantum spin Hall effect, it has been predicted that a magnetic impurity in the presence of strong Coulomb interactions will destroy the quantum spin Hall effect. However, the fate of the quantum spin Hall effect in the presence of magnetic impurities has not yet been experimentally investigated. Here, we report the successful experimental demonstration of a quantized spin Hall resistance in HgTe quantum wells dilutely alloyed with magnetic Mn atoms. These quantum wells exhibit an inverted band structure that is very similar to that of the undoped material. Micron sized devices of (Hg,Mn)Te quantum well (in the topological phase) show a quantized spin Hall resistance of h /2 e 2 at low temperatures and zero magnetic field. At finite temperatures, we observe signatures of the Kondo effect due to interaction between the helical edge channels and magnetic impurities. Our work lays the foundation for future investigations of magnetically doped quantum spin Hall materials towards the realization of chiral Majorana fermions. The quantum spin Hall effect is expected not to survive the presence of magnetic impurities. Here, authors report full quantization at very low temperatures in HgTe quantum wells alloyed with a few percent of magnetic Mn atoms, due to Kondo screening.
ISSN:2041-1723
2041-1723
DOI:10.1038/s41467-021-23262-1