Electron Delocalization in Gate-Tunable Gapless Silicene
Abstract
The application of a perpendicular electric field can drive silicene into a gapless state, characterized by two nearly fully spin-polarized Dirac cones owing to both relatively large spin-orbital interactions and inversion symmetry breaking. Here we argue that since inter-valley scattering from non-magnetic impurities is highly suppressed by time reversal symmetry, the physics should be effectively single-Dirac-cone like. Through numerical calculations, we demonstrate that there is no significant backscattering from a single impurity that is non-magnetic and unit-cell uniform, indicating a stable delocalized state. This conjecture is then further confirmed from a scaling of conductance for disordered systems using the same type of impurities.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1302.2821,
title = {Electron Delocalization in Gate-Tunable Gapless Silicene},
author = {Yan-Yang Zhang and Wei-Feng Tsai and Kai Chang and X. -T. An and G. -P. Zhang and X. -C. Xie and Shu-Shen Li},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1302.2821},
year = {2013}
}
Comments
6 pages, 3 figures, published version