Research Projects

The researchers aim to create a unique setup for simultaneous imaging of local magnetic field and current distribution, along with bulk transport measurement, down to below 10 K in a rotating magnetic field environment. This is an internationally unique setup that will be used to study a strong correlation Kondo topological insulator (TI), SmB6 and its heterostuctures. The current setup cannot do simultaneous imaging due to its old cryostat, which cannot handle thermal overheads. The proposed setup will go down to low T below 10 K, with applied magnetic field varying from parallel to perpendicular orientation up to a few kOe. The principle of imaging will be current and magnetic field modulation together with magneto-optical imaging. SmB6 material has strong electronic correlations, opening up a Kondo gap in the insulating bulk. These strongly correlated electron TI (SCES-TI) are expected to host non-ferromagnetic liquid heavy Dirac electronic fluid on the surface, resulting in different surface state conductivity features from conventional TI like Bi2Se3. The researchers plan to perform simultaneous current and local magnetization imaging to study the surface current distribution in SmB6 in and around the Kondo transition ~ 30 K. They also aim to study how injecting spin polarized current into these materials affects exotic surface states. Using magnetic heterostuctures with strong correlation TI, they aim to explore ways to create and manipulate quantum states. This is important from a quantum computation device perspective as TI prevent decoherence of quantum states and SCES-TIs host new quantum states compared to conventional TIs.