On the half-quantized Hall conductance of massive surface electrons in magnetic topological insulator films

In topological insulators,massive surface states resulting from local symmetry breaking were thought to exhibit a half-quantized Hall conductance,obtained from the low-energy effective model in an infinite Brillouin zone.In a lattice model,the surface band is composed of a combination of surface states and bulk states.The massive surface states alone may not be enough to support an exact one-half quantized surface Hall conductance in a finite Brillouin zone and the whole surface band always gives an integer quantized Hall conductance as enforced by the TKNN theorem.To explore this,we investigate the band structures of a lattice model describing the magnetic topological insulator film that supports the axion insulator,Chern insulator,and semi-magnetic topological insulator phases.We reveal that the gapped and gapless surface bands in the three phases are characterized by an integer-quantized Hall conductance and a half-quantized Hall conductance,respectively.We propose an effective model to describe the three phases and show that the low-energy dispersion of the surface bands inherits from the surface Dirac fermions.The gapped surface band manifests a nearly half-quantized Hall conductance at low energy near the center of Brillouin zone,but is compensated by another nearly half-quantized Hall conductance at high energy near the boundary of Brillouin zone because a single band can only have an integer-quantized Hall conductance.The gapless band hosts a zero Hall conductance at low energy but is compensated by another half-quantized Hall conductance at high energy,and thus the half-quantized Hall conductance can only originate from the gapless band.Moreover,we calculate the layer-resolved Hall conductance of the system.The conclusion suggests that the individual gapped surface band alone does not support the half-quantized surface Hall effect in a lattice model.

Quantum transport in topological semimetals under magnetic fields

Topological semimetals are three-dimensional topological states of matter, in which the conduction and valence bands touch at a finite number of points, i.e., the Weyl nodes. Topological semimetals host paired monopoles and antimonopoles of Berry curvature at the Weyl nodes and topologically protected Fermi arcs at certain surfaces. We review our recent works on quantum transport in topo- logical semimetals, according to the strength of the magnetic field. At weak magnetic fields, there are competitions between the positive magnetoresistivity induced by the weak anti-localization effect and negative magnetoresistivity related to the nontrivial Berry curvature. We propose a fitting formula for the magnetoconductivity of the weak anti-localization. We expect that the weak localization may be induced by inter-valley effects and interaction effect, and occur in double-Weyl semimetals. For the negative magnetoresistance induced by the nontrivial Berry curvature in topological semimetals, we show the dependence of the negative magnetoresistance on the carrier density. At strong magnetic fields, specifically, in the quantum limit, the magnetoconductivity depends on the type and range of the scattering potential of disorder. The high-field positive magnetoconductivity nmy not be a com- pelling signature of the chiral anomaly. For long-range Gaussian scattering potential and half filling, the magnetoconductivity can be linear in the quantum limit. A minimal conductivity is found at the Weyl nodes although the density of states vanishes there.

Towards the manipulation of topological states of matter： a perspective from electron transport

The introduction of topological invariants, ranging from insulators to metals, has provided new insights into the traditional classification of electronic states in condensed matter physics. A sudden change in the topological invariant at the boundary of a topological nontrivial system leads to the formation of exotic surface states that are dramatically different from its bulk. In recent years, significant advancements in the exploration of the physical properties of these topological systems and regarding device research related to spintronics and quantum computation have been made. Here, we review the progress of the characterization and manipulation of topological phases from the electron transport perspective and also the intriguing chiral/Majorana states that stem from them. We then discuss the future directions of research into these topological states and their potential applications.