Tay Han, Zhao Yi-Fan, Zhou Ling-Jie, Zhang Ruoxi, Yan Zi-Jie, Zhuo Deyi, Chan Moses H W, Chang Cui-Zu
Department of Physics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, United States.
Materials Research Institute, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, United States.
Nano Lett. 2023 Feb 8;23(3):1093-1099. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.2c04871. Epub 2023 Jan 30.
The quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) insulator carries dissipation-free chiral edge current and thus provides a unique opportunity to develop energy-efficient transformative information technology. Despite promising advances, the QAH insulator has thus far eluded any practical applications. In addition to its low working temperature, the QAH state in magnetically doped topological insulators usually deteriorates with time in ambient conditions. In this work, we store three QAH devices with similar initial properties in different environments. The QAH device without a protection layer in air shows clear degradation and becomes hole-doped. The QAH device kept in an argon glovebox without a protection layer shows no measurable degradation after 560 h, and the device protected by a 3 nm AlO protection layer in air shows minimal degradation with stable QAH properties. Our work shows a route to preserve the dissipation-free chiral edge state in QAH devices for potential applications in quantum information technology.
量子反常霍尔（QAH）绝缘体承载无耗散的手性边缘电流，因此为开发节能变革性信息技术提供了独特机会。尽管取得了有前景的进展，但QAH绝缘体迄今为止尚未有任何实际应用。除了工作温度低之外，磁掺杂拓扑绝缘体中的QAH态在环境条件下通常会随时间恶化。在这项工作中，我们将三个具有相似初始特性的QAH器件存储在不同环境中。空气中没有保护层的QAH器件显示出明显的退化并变成空穴掺杂。保存在没有保护层的氩气手套箱中的QAH器件在560小时后没有显示出可测量的退化，而在空气中由3纳米AlO保护层保护的器件显示出最小的退化且具有稳定的QAH特性。我们的工作展示了一种在QAH器件中保存无耗散手性边缘态的方法，以用于量子信息技术的潜在应用。
