2025/07/01 by Ruffenach, S., Krishtopenko, S. S., Ikonnikov, A. V. +6
#FOS: Physical sciences #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) #Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2507.00565
We present far-infrared magnetospectroscopy measurements of a HgTe quantum well in the inverted band structure regime over the temperature range of 2 to 60 K. The particularly low electron concentration enables us to probe the temperature evolution of all four possible optical transitions originating from zero-mode Landau levels, which are split off from the edges of the electron-like and hole-like bands. By analyzing their resonance energies, we reveal an unambiguous breakdown of the single-particle picture indicating that the explanation of the anticrossing of zero-mode Landau levels in terms of bulk and interface inversion asymmetries is insufficient. Instead, the observed behavior of the optical transitions is well explained by their hybridization driven by electron-electron interaction. We emphasize that our proposed many-particle mechanism is intrinsic to HgTe quantum wells of any crystallographic orientation, including (110) and (111) wells, where bulk and interface inversion asymmetries do not induce the anticrossing of zero-mode Landau levels.