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Edge currents from ballistic expansion of Skyrmions in a quantum Hall antiferromagnet

ORAL

Abstract

We study the behavior of Skyrmions predicted to naturally occur in the ν=0 quantum Hall antiferromagnetic state of a graphene, and show that under  illumination by circularly polarized light strong enough to induce a topologically nontrivial state, such a Skyrmion ballistically expands until it reaches the edge of the sample, where the charge in the Skyrmion proceeds to circulate as an edge current. The magnitude of the current can be controlled by changing the intensity of a second burst of circularly polarized light. We propose that this mechanism can be used as an effective protocol to move charge carried by  skyrmionic defects into edge currents.

Publication: Deepak Iyer and Matthew S. Foster, Phys. Rev. B 101, 241403(R) (2020)

Presenters

  • Deepak Iyer

    Bucknell University

Authors

  • Deepak Iyer

    Bucknell University

  • Matthew Foster

    Rice Univ, Rice University