Quantum confinement of the Dirac surface states in topological-insulator nanowires

Felix Münning, Oliver Breunig, Henry F. Legg, Stefan Roitsch, Dingxun Fan, Matthias Rößler, Achim Rosch and Yoichi Ando ()
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Felix Münning: University of Cologne
Oliver Breunig: University of Cologne
Henry F. Legg: University of Cologne
Stefan Roitsch: University of Cologne
Dingxun Fan: University of Cologne
Matthias Rößler: University of Cologne
Achim Rosch: University of Cologne
Yoichi Ando: University of Cologne

Nature Communications, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-6

Abstract: Abstract The non-trivial topology of three-dimensional topological insulators dictates the appearance of gapless Dirac surface states. Intriguingly, when made into a nanowire, quantum confinement leads to a peculiar gapped Dirac sub-band structure. This gap is useful for, e.g., future Majorana qubits based on TIs. Furthermore, these sub-bands can be manipulated by a magnetic flux and are an ideal platform for generating stable Majorana zero modes, playing a key role in topological quantum computing. However, direct evidence for the Dirac sub-bands in TI nanowires has not been reported so far. Here, using devices fabricated from thin bulk-insulating (Bi1−xSbx)2Te3 nanowires we show that non-equidistant resistance peaks, observed upon gate-tuning the chemical potential across the Dirac point, are the unique signatures of the quantized sub-bands. These TI nanowires open the way to address the topological mesoscopic physics, and eventually the Majorana physics when proximitized by an s-wave superconductor.

Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-21230-3

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