title: Aharonov-Bohm oscillations in disordered topological insulator nanowires.
abstract: A direct signature of electron transport at the metallic surface of a topological insulator is the Aharonov-Bohm oscillation observed in a recent study of Bi2Se3 nanowires [Peng, Nature Mater. 9, 225 (2010)] where conductance was found to oscillate as a function of magnetic flux ϕ through the wire, with a period of one flux quantum ϕ0=h/e and maximum conductance at zero flux. This seemingly agrees neither with diffusive theory, which would predict a period of half a flux quantum, nor with ballistic theory, which in the simplest form predicts a period of ϕ0 but a minimum at zero flux due to a nontrivial Berry phase in topological insulators. We show how h/e and h/2e flux oscillations of the conductance depend on doping and disorder strength, provide a possible explanation for the experiments, and discuss further experiments that could verify the theory.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
authors.forename: J H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Bardarson
authors.forename: P W
authors.initials: PW
authors.lastname: Brouwer
authors.forename: J E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Moore