Helical edge states and edge-state transport in strained armchair graphene nanoribbons

Abstract A helical type edge state, which is generally supported only on graphene with zigzag boundaries, is found to also appear in armchair graphene nanoribbons in the presence of intrinsic spin-orbit coupling and a suitable strain. At a critical strain, there appears a quantum phase transition fr...

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Autores principales: Zheng-Fang Liu, Qing-Ping Wu, Ai-Xi Chen, Xian-Bo Xiao, Nian-Hua Liu, Guo-Xing Miao
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Publicado: Nature Portfolio 2017
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Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/76fdce77ad384ab5b7c6b51bb898ec33
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spelling oai:doaj.org-article:76fdce77ad384ab5b7c6b51bb898ec332021-12-02T16:06:21ZHelical edge states and edge-state transport in strained armchair graphene nanoribbons10.1038/s41598-017-08954-32045-2322https://doaj.org/article/76fdce77ad384ab5b7c6b51bb898ec332017-08-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-08954-3https://doaj.org/toc/2045-2322Abstract A helical type edge state, which is generally supported only on graphene with zigzag boundaries, is found to also appear in armchair graphene nanoribbons in the presence of intrinsic spin-orbit coupling and a suitable strain. At a critical strain, there appears a quantum phase transition from a quantum spin Hall state to a trivial insulator state. Further investigation shows that the armchair graphene nanoribbons with intrinsic spin-orbit coupling, Rashba spin-orbit coupling, effective exchange fields and strains also support helical-like edge states with a unique spin texture. In such armchair graphene nanoribbons, the spin directions of the counterpropogating edge states on the same boundary are always opposite to each other, while is not conserved and the spins are canted away from the -direction due to the Rashba spin-orbit coupling, which is different from the case of the zigzag graphene nanoribbons. Moreover, the edge-state energy gap is smaller than that in zigzag graphene nanoribbons, even absent in certain cases.Zheng-Fang LiuQing-Ping WuAi-Xi ChenXian-Bo XiaoNian-Hua LiuGuo-Xing MiaoNature PortfolioarticleMedicineRScienceQENScientific Reports, Vol 7, Iss 1, Pp 1-10 (2017)
institution DOAJ
collection DOAJ
language EN
topic Medicine
R
Science
Q
spellingShingle Medicine
R
Science
Q
Zheng-Fang Liu
Qing-Ping Wu
Ai-Xi Chen
Xian-Bo Xiao
Nian-Hua Liu
Guo-Xing Miao
Helical edge states and edge-state transport in strained armchair graphene nanoribbons
description Abstract A helical type edge state, which is generally supported only on graphene with zigzag boundaries, is found to also appear in armchair graphene nanoribbons in the presence of intrinsic spin-orbit coupling and a suitable strain. At a critical strain, there appears a quantum phase transition from a quantum spin Hall state to a trivial insulator state. Further investigation shows that the armchair graphene nanoribbons with intrinsic spin-orbit coupling, Rashba spin-orbit coupling, effective exchange fields and strains also support helical-like edge states with a unique spin texture. In such armchair graphene nanoribbons, the spin directions of the counterpropogating edge states on the same boundary are always opposite to each other, while is not conserved and the spins are canted away from the -direction due to the Rashba spin-orbit coupling, which is different from the case of the zigzag graphene nanoribbons. Moreover, the edge-state energy gap is smaller than that in zigzag graphene nanoribbons, even absent in certain cases.
format article
author Zheng-Fang Liu
Qing-Ping Wu
Ai-Xi Chen
Xian-Bo Xiao
Nian-Hua Liu
Guo-Xing Miao
author_facet Zheng-Fang Liu
Qing-Ping Wu
Ai-Xi Chen
Xian-Bo Xiao
Nian-Hua Liu
Guo-Xing Miao
author_sort Zheng-Fang Liu
title Helical edge states and edge-state transport in strained armchair graphene nanoribbons
title_short Helical edge states and edge-state transport in strained armchair graphene nanoribbons
title_full Helical edge states and edge-state transport in strained armchair graphene nanoribbons
title_fullStr Helical edge states and edge-state transport in strained armchair graphene nanoribbons
title_full_unstemmed Helical edge states and edge-state transport in strained armchair graphene nanoribbons
title_sort helical edge states and edge-state transport in strained armchair graphene nanoribbons
publisher Nature Portfolio
publishDate 2017
url https://doaj.org/article/76fdce77ad384ab5b7c6b51bb898ec33
work_keys_str_mv AT zhengfangliu helicaledgestatesandedgestatetransportinstrainedarmchairgraphenenanoribbons
AT qingpingwu helicaledgestatesandedgestatetransportinstrainedarmchairgraphenenanoribbons
AT aixichen helicaledgestatesandedgestatetransportinstrainedarmchairgraphenenanoribbons
AT xianboxiao helicaledgestatesandedgestatetransportinstrainedarmchairgraphenenanoribbons
AT nianhualiu helicaledgestatesandedgestatetransportinstrainedarmchairgraphenenanoribbons
AT guoxingmiao helicaledgestatesandedgestatetransportinstrainedarmchairgraphenenanoribbons
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