Adiabatic quantum pumping through surface states in 3D topological insulators

M Alos-Palop, Rakesh P Tiwari, M Blaauboer
2012 New Journal of Physics  
We investigate adiabatic quantum pumping of Dirac fermions on the surface of a strong 3D topological insulator. Two different geometries are studied in detail, a normal metal -- ferromagnetic -- normal metal (NFN) junction and a ferromagnetic -- normal metal -- ferromagnetic (FNF) junction. Using a scattering matrix approach, we first calculate the tunneling conductance and then the adiabatically pumped current using different pumping mechanisms for both types of junctions. We explain the
more » ... atory behavior of the conductance by studying the condition for resonant transmission in the junctions and find that each time a new resonant mode appears in the transport window, the pumped current diverges. We also predict an experimentally distinguishable difference between the pumped current and the rectified current.
doi:10.1088/1367-2630/14/11/113003 fatcat:7a72hqsarralhnlwqhhxmjhume