Quantum Transport of Topological and Trivial Edge States in Sn‐Doped SbH Nanoribbons

Abstract

Although the transport of topological edge states may be insensitive to impurities, impurities may induce the interedge scattering and backscattering in topological nanoribbons due to the finite size effect. It may be interesting to compare the transport of topological edge states with that of trivial edge states in nanoribbons. Here, the quantum transport of edge states in the Sn‐doped SbH nanoribbons using the density functional theory combined with nonequilibrium Green's function method is studied. Both topological and trivial edge states can be found in the zigzag SbH nanoribbons. The impurity generates a higher barrier near the doping position and leads to the scattering of the states. From calculations, the transmission of topological edge states can be smaller than that of trivial edge states due to the antiresonance behavior. Compared with topological edge states, the transport of trivial edge states is more sensitive to the impurity position. Besides, the edge impurity is more likely to induce scattering for both topological and trivial edge states than the central impurity in narrow SbH nanoribbons, since the transport channels are limited to the edges. This study may be helpful for understanding the transport of edge states in nanoribbons.