2020/07/15 by Johannes Feldmeier, W. M. H. Natori, Willian Natori +2
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #Charge (physics) #Condensed matter physics #Ferromagnetism #Geometry #Magnon #Physics #Quantum #Quantum many-body systems #Quantum mechanics #Scanning tunneling microscope #Spin (aerodynamics) #Surface (topology) #Surface states #Topological Materials and Phenomena #Topological insulator #Topology (electrical circuits) #cond-mat.str-el #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.102.134423
published as Phys. Rev. B 102, 134423 (2020) · 5+6 pages; 3+3 figures
arxiv created 2020/07/15 · openalex created_date 2020/07/23 · openalex publication_date 2020/10/16 · arxiv updated 2020/10/21 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The bulk-boundary correspondence is a defining feature of topological states of matter. However, for quantum magnets in two dimensions such as spin liquids or topological magnon insulators, a direct observation of topological surface states has proven challenging because of the charge-neutral character of the excitations. Here we propose spin-polarized scanning tunneling microscopy as a spin-sensitive local probe to provide direct information about charge-neutral topological edge states. We show how their signatures, imprinted in the local structure factor, can be extracted by specifically employing the strengths of existing technologies. As our main example, we determine the dynamical spin correlations of the Kitaev honeycomb model with open boundaries. We show that by contrasting conductance measurements of bulk and edge locations, one can extract direct signatures of the existence of fractionalized excitations and nontrivial topology. The broad applicability of this approach is corroborated by a second example of a kagome topological magnon insulator.