2016/08/31 by Yonathan Efroni, Shahal Ilani, Erez Berg
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Carbon nanotube #Charge (physics) #Condensed matter physics #Coupling (piping) #Graphene research and applications #Magnetic field #Materials science #Nanotechnology #Physics #Quantization (signal processing) #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #Quantum mechanics #Spin (aerodynamics) #Topological Materials and Phenomena #Topology (electrical circuits) #cond-mat.mes-hall
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.119.147704
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 147704 (2017) · 10 pages, 8 figures
arxiv created 2017/08/28 · openalex publication_date 2017/10/05 · arxiv updated 2017/10/11 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We show that carbon nanotubes (CNT) can be driven through a topological phase transition using either strain or a magnetic field. This can naturally lead to Jackiw-Rebbi soliton states carrying fractionalized charges, similar to those found in a domain wall in the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model, in a setup with a spatially inhomogeneous strain and an axial field. Two types of fractionalized states can be formed at the interface between regions with different strain: a spin-charge separated state with integer charge and spin zero (or zero charge and spin ±ℏ/2), and a state with charge ±e/2 and spin ±ℏ/4. The latter state requires spin-orbit coupling in the CNT. We show that in our setup, the precise quantization of the fractionalized interface charges is a consequence of the symmetry of the CNT under a combination of a spatial rotation by π and time reversal.