Zeeman Field-``Rotated'' Transitions for Surface Chern Insulators

ORAL

Abstract

Mirror symmetric surfaces of a topological crystalline insulator (e.g. SnTe) host even number of Dirac surface states. A surface Zeeman field generically gaps these states leading to a quantized anomalous Hall effect. Varying the direction of Zeeman field induces transitions between different surface insulating states with any two Chern numbers between -4 and 4. In the crystal frame the phase boundaries occur for field orientations which are great circles with (111)-like normals on a sphere. [arXiv:1309.7682]

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Authors

  • E.J. Mele

    • Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania
    • University of Pennsylvania

  • Fan Zhang

    • Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania
    • University of Pennsylvania
    • Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA

  • Xiao Li

    • Department of Physics, The University of Texas at Austin

  • Ji Feng

    • International Center for Quantum Materials, Peking University

  • C.L. Kane

    • Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania