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Distributed Current Injection into a One-Dimensional Ballistic Edge Channel

Kristof Moors1,2,*,‡, Christian Wagner3, Helmut Soltner4, Felix Lüpke2,3,5, F. Stefan Tautz3,2,6,†, and Bert Voigtländer3,2,6

  • *Present address: Imec, Kapeldreef 75, 3001 Leuven, Belgium.
  • †Contact author: s.tautz@fz-juelich.de
  • ‡Contact author: kristof.moors@imec.be
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 186301 – Published 29 October, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/l47r-plxq

Abstract

We generalize Landauer’s theory of ballistic transport in a one-dimensional (1D) conductor to situations where charge carrier injection and extraction are not any more confined to electrodes at either end of the channel, but may occur along its whole length. This type of distributed injection is expected to occur from the two-dimensional (2D) bulk of, e.g., a quantum spin (or anomalous) Hall insulator to its topologically protected edge states. We apply our conceptual solution to the case of two metal electrodes contacting the 2D bulk, enabling us to derive criteria that discriminate ballistic from resistive edge channels in multiterminal transport experiments.

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Information

Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 186301– Published 29 October, 2025
  • Received 26 February 2025
  • Accepted 23 September 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

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