Topologically protected quantum transport in locally exfoliated bismuth at room temperature
Entity
UAM. Departamento de Física de la Materia CondensadaPublisher
American Physical SocietyDate
2013-04-23Citation
10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.176802
Physical Review Letters 110.17 (2013): 176802
ISSN
0031-9007 (print); 1079-7114 (online)DOI
10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.176802Funded by
We thank the Spanish MICINN for financial support through Grants No. FIS2010- 21883, No. FIS2011-23488, and No. CONSOLIDER CSD2007-0010, and Generalitat Valenciana through Grants No. ACCOMP/2012/127 and No. PROMETEO/ 2012/011. D. G.-M. acknowledges the Centro de Computación Científica at UAM for computational support. Cristina Almansa is gratefully acknowledged for her help with the transmission electron microscopeProject
Gobierno de España. FIS2010- 21883; Gobierno de España. FIS2011-23488; Gobierno de España. CSD2007-0010Editor's Version
http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.176802Subjects
Electrical conductance; Experimental evidence; Mechanical exfoliation; Quantum spin halls; Quantum transport; Room temperature; Scanning tunneling microscopes; Two-dimensional crystals; FísicaRights
© 2013 American Physical SocietyAbstract
We report electrical conductance measurements of Bi nanocontacts created by repeated tip-surface indentation using a scanning tunneling microscope at temperatures of 4 and 300 K. As a function of the elongation of the nanocontact, we measure robust, tens of nanometers long plateaus of conductance G 0=2e2/h at room temperature. This observation can be accounted for by the mechanical exfoliation of a Bi(111) bilayer, a predicted quantum spin Hall (QSH) insulator, in the retracing process following a tip-surface contact. The formation of the bilayer is further supported by the additional observation of conductance steps below G0 before breakup at both temperatures. Our finding provides the first experimental evidence of the possibility of mechanical exfoliation of Bi bilayers, the existence of the QSH phase in a two-dimensional crystal, and, most importantly, the observation of the QSH phase at room temperature
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Google Scholar:Sabater, C.
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Gosálbez-Martínez, D.
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Fernández-Rossier, J.
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Rodrigo Rodríguez, José Gabriel
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Untiedt, C.
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Palacios Burgos, Juan José
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