Spin-orbit coupling, edge states and quantum spin Hall criticality due to Dirac fermion confinement: The case study of graphene

TL;DR

This paper models graphene with zigzag edges using a Dirac fermion approach incorporating spin-orbit coupling, revealing a quantum spin Hall phase transition characterized by unique edge states and a discontinuous local density of states.

Contribution

It introduces a generalized Dirac fermion model for graphene edges that includes spin-orbit coupling, demonstrating a novel quantum spin Hall phase transition and unique edge states without a bulk gap.

Findings

Identification of a critical spin-orbit coupling strength inducing a phase transition.

Discovery of a new type of edge states with counter-propagating, spin-opposite modes.

Observation of a discontinuous local density of states at the phase transition.

Abstract

We propose a generalized Dirac fermion description for the electronic state of graphene terminated by a zigzag edge. This description admits a spin-orbit coupling needed to preserve time-reversal invariance of the zigzag confinement, otherwise, for spinless particles, showing the parity anomaly typical of quantum electrodynamics in (2+1) dimensions. At a certain critical strength the spin-orbit coupling induces a phase transition of the quantum-spin-Hall type. It is manifested by a novel type of the edge states consisting of a Kramers' pair of counter-propagating modes with opposite spin orientations. Such edge states are capable of accumulating an integer spin in response to a transverse electric field in the absence of a magnetic one. They exist without any excitation gap in the bulk, due to which our system stands out among other quantum spin Hall systems studied earlier. We show that at the transition the local density of states is discontinuous and its energy dependence reflects the phase diagram of the system.