Time-reversal-symmetry broken quantum spin Hall in Lieb lattice

Abstract

In this paper, the time-reversal (TR) symmetry broken quantum spin Hall (QSH) in Lieb lattice is investigated in the presence of both Rashba spin-orbit coupling (SOC) and uniform exchange field. The Lieb lattice has a simple cubic symmetry, and it has three different sites in each unit cell. The most distinctive feature of this model is that it contains only one Dirac-cone in the first Brillouin zone, where the upper dispersive band and the lower dispersive band touch the middle zero-energy band at M point and form a cone-like dispersion. The intrinsic SOC is essentially needed to open the full energy gap in the bulk. When the intrinsic SOC is nonzero, all the band structures are separated everywhere in the Brillouin zone and can be characterized by some topological invariants. The exact QSH first put forward by Kane and Mele in 2005 is characterized by the z2 number. The protection from the TR symmetry ensures the gapless crossing in the surface state in the bulk gap. In our model, the presence of the exchange field breaks the TR symmetry, which results in opening a small gap in the crossing point and the z2 topological order is not suitable for the system. This kind of state is a TR symmetry broken QSH, which is characterized by the spin Chern numbers. The spin Chern numbers have a much wider scope of application than z2 index. It is suitable for both TR symmetry system and the TR symmetry broken system. For Lieb lattice ribbons, the spin polarization and the wave-function distributions are obtained numerically. There exists a weak scattering between the counter-propagating states in the TR symmetry broken QSH, and the spin transport along the boundary with a low dissipation replaces the dissipationless spin current in a TR symmetry system. In experiment, such a system can be realized by the two-dimensional Fermi gases in optical lattice with Lieb symmetry. The above conclusions are expected to give theoretical guidance in the spin device and the quantum information.