Tunneling between helical edge states through extended contacts

G. Dolcetto, S. Barbarino, D. Ferraro, N. Magnoli, M. Sassetti

Published 2012-03-20, updated 2012-06-07Version 2

We consider a quantum spin Hall system in a two-terminal setup, with an extended tunneling contact connecting upper and lower edges. We analyze the effects of this geometry on the backscattering current as a function of voltage, temperature, and strength of the electron interactions. We find that this configuration may be useful to confirm the helical nature of the edge states and to extract their propagation velocity. By comparing with the usual quantum point contact geometry, we observe that the power-law behaviors predicted for the backscattering current and the linear conductance are recovered for low enough energies, while different power-laws also emerge at higher energies.