Quantum spin compass models in two-dimensional electronic topological metasurfaces

We consider a metasurface consisting of a square lattice of cylindrical antidots in a two-dimensional topological insulator (2DTI). Each antidot supports a degenerate Kramer's pair of eigenstates formed by the helical topological edge states. We show that the on-site Coulomb repulsion leads to...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: F. O. Nigmatulin, I. A. Shelykh, I. V. Iorsh
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: American Physical Society 2021-10-01
Series:Physical Review Research
Online Access:http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.3.043016
Description
Summary:We consider a metasurface consisting of a square lattice of cylindrical antidots in a two-dimensional topological insulator (2DTI). Each antidot supports a degenerate Kramer's pair of eigenstates formed by the helical topological edge states. We show that the on-site Coulomb repulsion leads to the onset of the Mott insulator phase in the system in a certain range of experimentally relevant parameters. Intrinsic strong spin-orbit coupling characteristic for the 2DTI supports a rich class of the emerging low-energy spin Hamiltonians that can be emulated in the considered system, which makes it an appealing solid-state platform for quantum simulations of strongly correlated electron systems.
ISSN:2643-1564