Optically induced topological states on the surface of mercury telluride

O. Kyriienko, O. V. Kibis, I. A. Shelykh

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We developed the theory which describes the Floquet engineering of surface electronic modes in bulk mercury telluride (HgTe) by a circularly polarized electromagnetic field. The analysis shows that the field results in the appearance of the surface states which arise from the mixing of conduction and valence bands of HgTe. Their branches lie near the center of the Brillouin zone and have the Dirac dispersion characteristic for topological states. Besides them, the irradiation induces the gap between the conduction and valence bands of HgTe. Thus, the irradiation can turn mercury telluride into a topological insulator from a gapless semiconductor. It is demonstrated that the optically induced states differ substantially from the nontopological surface states existing in HgTe without irradiation. The structure of the found states is studied both analytically and numerically in the broad range of their parameters.

Original languageEnglish
Article number115411
JournalPhysical Review B
Volume99
Issue number11
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 11 Mar 2019

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The work was partially supported by Horizon2020 RISE project COEXAN, Rannis project 163082-051, Russian Foundation for Basic Research (project 17-02-00053), Ministry of Education and Science of Russian Federation (projects 3.4573.2017/6.7, 3.2614.2017/4.6, 14.Y26.31.0015), and the Government of the Russian Federation through the ITMO Fellowship and Professorship Program. O.K. and O.V.K. thank the University of Iceland for hospitality.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 American Physical Society.

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