Kondo effect in a topological insulator quantum dot

Abstract

We investigate theoretically the nonequilibrium transport properties of a topological insulator quantum dot (TIQD) in the Coulomb blockade and Kondo regime. An Anderson impurity model is applied to a TIQD system coupled to two external leads, and we show that the model realizes the spin-orbital Kondo effect at the Dirac point where the edge states are not split by a finite-size effect, leading to an additional $SU(4)$ symmetry because of the presence of strong mixture among four internal degrees of freedom. In a more realistic situation where the degeneracy is lifted due to the finite-size effect, we demonstrate that there is a richer structure in transport measurements. We illustrate a continuous crossover from four (spin and orbital) Coulomb peaks with large interpair spacing and small intrapair spacing to a double-peak structure in the local density of states (LDOS) as increasing the hybridization strength $\ensuremath{\Gamma}$ within the Coulomb blockade regime. When temperature falls below the Kondo temperature ${T}_{K}$, four Kondo peaks show up in the nonequilibrium LDOS. Two of them are located at the chemical potential of each lead, and the other two are shifted away from the chemical potential by an amount proportional to the TIQD's bare energy level, leading to a triple-peak structure in the differential conductance when a bias voltage is applied.