%0 Journal Article
%T Disorder and magnetic-field induced breakdown of helical edge conduction in an inverted electron-hole bilayer
%A D. I. Pikulin
%A T. Hyart
%A Shuo Mi
%A J. Tworzyd£¿o
%A M. Wimmer
%A C. W. J. Beenakker
%J Physics
%D 2014
%I arXiv
%R 10.1103/PhysRevB.89.161403
%X We calculate the conductance of a two-dimensional bilayer with inverted electron-hole bands, to study the sensitivity of the quantum spin Hall insulator (with helical edge conduction) to the combination of electrostatic disorder and a perpendicular magnetic field. The characteristic breakdown field for helical edge conduction splits into two fields with increasing disorder, a field $B_{c}$ for the transition into a quantum Hall insulator (supporting chiral edge conduction) and a smaller field $B'_{c}$ for the transition to bulk conduction in a quasi-metallic regime. The spatial separation of the inverted bands, typical for broken-gap InAs/GaSb quantum wells, is essential for the magnetic-field induced bulk conduction --- there is no such regime in HgTe quantum wells.
%U http://arxiv.org/abs/1401.0299v3