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Science 17 July 2009:
Vol. 325. no. 5938, pp. 294 - 297
DOI: 10.1126/science.1174736
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Research Articles

Nonlocal Transport in the Quantum Spin Hall State

Andreas Roth,1 Christoph Brüne,1 Hartmut Buhmann,1 Laurens W. Molenkamp,1,* Joseph Maciejko,2,3 Xiao-Liang Qi,2,3 Shou-Cheng Zhang2,3

Nonlocal transport through edge channels holds great promise for low-power information processing. However, edge channels have so far only been demonstrated to occur in the quantum Hall regime, at high magnetic fields. We found that mercury telluride quantum wells in the quantum spin Hall regime exhibit nonlocal edge channel transport at zero external magnetic field. The data confirm that the quantum transport through the (helical) edge channels is dissipationless and that the contacts lead to equilibration between the counterpropagating spin states at the edge. The experimental data agree quantitatively with the theory of the quantum spin Hall effect. The edge channel transport paves the way for a new generation of spintronic devices for low-power information processing.

1 Physikalisches Institut (EP3) and Röntgen Center for Complex Material Systems, Universität Würzburg, Am Hubland, 97074 Würzburg, Germany.
2 Department of Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
3 Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, 2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: molenkmp{at}physik.uni-wuerzburg.de

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Edge-State Physics Without Magnetic Fields.
M. Buttiker (2009)
Science 325, 278-279
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)