TY  - JOUR
A1  - König, Markus
A1  - Baenninger, Matthias
A1  - Garcia, Andrei G. F.
A1  - Harjee, Nahid
A1  - Pruitt, Beth L.
A1  - Ames, C.
A1  - Leubner, Philipp
A1  - Brüne, Christoph
A1  - Buhmann, Hartmut
A1  - Molenkamp, Laurens W.
A1  - Goldhaber-Gordon, David
T1  - Spatially Resolved Study of Backscattering in the Quantum Spin Hall State
JF  - Physical Review X
N2  - The discovery of the quantum spin Hall (QSH) state, and topological insulators in general, has sparked strong experimental efforts. Transport studies of the quantum spin Hall state have confirmed the presence of edge states, showed ballistic edge transport in micron-sized samples, and demonstrated the spin polarization of the helical edge states. While these experiments have confirmed the broad theoretical model, the properties of the QSH edge states have not yet been investigated on a local scale. Using scanning gate microscopy to perturb the QSH edge states on a submicron scale, we identify well-localized scattering sites which likely limit the expected nondissipative transport in the helical edge channels. In the micron-sized regions between the scattering sites, the edge states appear to propagate unperturbed, as expected for an ideal QSH system, and are found to be robust against weak induced potential fluctuations.
KW  - mesoscopics
KW  - topological insulators
KW  - transport
KW  - charge
KW  - wells
KW  - branched flow
KW  - nanostructures
Y1  - 2013
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-127225
SN  - 2160-3308
VL  - 3
IS  - 2
ER  -