Electron tunneling through a planar single barrier in HgTe quantum wells with inverted band structures

L. B. Zhang, Feng Zhai, and Kai Chang

Phys. Rev. B 81, 235323 – Published 21 June 2010

Abstract

We present a theoretical study on the electron tunneling through a single barrier created in a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) and quantum spin Hall (QSH) bar in a HgTe/CdTe quantum well with inverted band structures. For the 2DEG, the transmission shows the Fabry-Pérot resonances for the interband tunneling process and is blocked when the incident energy lies in the bulk gap of the barrier region. For the QSH bar, the transmission gap is reduced to the edge gap caused by the finite size effect. Instead, transmission dips appear due to the interference between the edge states and the bound states originated from the bulk states. Such a Fano-like resonance leads to a sharp dip in the transmission which can be observed experimentally.

Received 24 March 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.81.235323

Authors & Affiliations

L. B. Zhang¹, Feng Zhai², and Kai Chang¹

¹SKLSM, Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences, P.O. Box 912, Beijing 100083, China
²School of Physics and Optoelectronic Technology and College of Advanced Science and Technology, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China

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Vol. 81, Iss. 23 — 15 June 2010

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Physical Review B

covering condensed matter and materials physics