Interplay of quantum spin Hall effect and spontaneous time-reversal symmetry breaking in electron-hole bilayers I: Transport properties

TL;DR

This paper investigates how Coulomb interactions induce a time-reversal symmetry broken phase in electron-hole bilayers, affecting transport properties and providing experimental signatures of the quantum spin Hall effect.

Contribution

It demonstrates that the transport signatures of the time-reversal symmetry broken phase align with recent experiments and analyzes edge and bulk conductance in a Corbino disc setup.

Findings

Edge becomes smoothly conducting in the broken phase

Bulk remains insulating across phase transition

Transport signatures confirm the presence of symmetry breaking

Abstract

The band-inverted electron-hole bilayers, such as InAs/GaSb, are an interesting playground for the interplay of quantum spin Hall effect and correlation effects because of the small density of electrons and holes and the relatively small hybridization between the electron and hole bands. It has been proposed that Coulomb interactions lead to a time-reversal symmetry broken phase when the electron and hole densities are tuned from the trivial to the quantum spin Hall insulator regime. We show that the transport properties of the system in the time-reversal symmetry broken phase are consistent with the recent experimental observations in InAs/GaSb. Moreover, we carry out a quantum transport study on a Corbino disc where the bulk and edge contributions to the conductance can be separated. We show that the edge becomes smoothly conducting and the bulk is always insulating when one tunes the system from the trivial to the quantum spin Hall insulator phase, providing unambiguous transport signatures of the time-reversal symmetry broken phase.