Chiral interface states and related quantized transport in disordered Chern insulators
Zhiqiang Zhang, Chui‐Zhen Chen, Yijia Wu, Hua Jiang, Junwei Liu, Qing‐Feng Sun, Xiaoming Xie
Abstract
In this paper, we study an Anderson-localization-induced quantized transport in disordered Chern insulators (CIs). By investigating the disordered CIs with a step potential, we find that the chiral interface states emerge along the interfaces of the step potential, and the energy range for such quantized transport can be manipulated through the potential strength. Furthermore, numerical simulations on the case with a multistep potential demonstrate that such a chiral state can be spatially shifted by varying the Fermi energy, and the energy window for quantized transport is greatly enlarged. Experimentally, such a chiral interface states can be realized by imposing transverse electric field, in which the energy window for quantized transport is much broader than the intrinsic band gap of the corresponding CI. These phenomena are quite universal for disordered CIs due to the direct phase transition between the CI and the normal insulator.