Probing crossover from analogous weak antilocalization to localization by an Aharonov-Bohm interferometer on topological insulator surface

TL;DR

This paper proposes a scanning tunneling microscopy Aharonov-Bohm interferometer on topological insulator surfaces to observe the transition from weak antilocalization to localization through changes in AB oscillation periodicity.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to probe the crossover from WAL to WL in topological insulators using AB oscillations in spin-resolved LDOS.

Findings

AB oscillations transition from half-integer flux quantum to integer flux quantum with increasing energy gap

Analytical and numerical results confirm the periodicity change in LDOS oscillations

Method provides a way to study localization phenomena on TI surfaces

Abstract

We propose a scanning tunneling microscopy Aharonov-Bohm (AB) interferometer on the surface of a topological insulator (TI) to probe the crossover from analogous weak antilocalization (WAL) to weak localization (WL) phenomenon via the AB oscillations in spin-resolved local density of states (LDOS). Based on our analytical and numerical results, we show that with increasing the energy gap of TI surface states, the $\Phi_{0}/2$=$hc/2e$ periodic AB oscillations in spin-resolved LDOS gradually transit into the $\Phi_{0}$ periodic oscillations.