Chiral two-dimensional electron gas in a periodic magnetic field

Mathieu Taillefumier (1, 2) , Vitalii Dugaev (1, 3, 4) , Benjamin Canals (5) , Claudine Lacroix (5) , Patrick Bruno (1)

1 MPI-HALLE - Max-Planck-Institut für Mikrostrukturphysik
2 NTNU - Norwegian University of Science and Technology [Trondheim]
3 Department of Physics and CFIF
4 Department of Physics, Rzeszów University of Technology
5 NEEL - TMC - Théorie de la Matière Condensée

We study the energy spectrum and electronic properties of two-dimensional electron gas in a periodic magnetic field of zero average with a symmetry of triangular lattice. We demonstrate how the structure of electron energy bands can be changed with the variation of the field strength, so that we can start from nearly free electron gas and then transform it continuously to a system of essentially localized chiral electron states. We find that the electrons near some minima of the effective potential are responsible for occurrence of dissipationless persistent currents creating a lattice of current contours. The topological properties of the electron energy bands are also varied with the intensity of periodic field. We calculated the topological Chern numbers of several lower energy bands as a function of the field. The corresponding Hall conductivity is nonzero and, when the Fermi level lies in the gap, it is quantized.

Mots clés: topology; periodic magnetic field; two dimensional electron gas; chern numbers; Hall effect; quantized conductivity

Domaines: Electrons fortement corrélés [cond-mat.str-el]

Mathieu Taillefumier, Vitalii Dugaev, Benjamin Canals, Claudine Lacroix, Patrick Bruno. Chiral two-dimensional electron gas in a periodic magnetic field. Physical Review B: Condensed Matter and Materials Physics (1998-2015), 2008, 78, pp.155330. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevB.78.155330⟩. ⟨hal-00293359⟩