Magnetic field-induced helical mode and topological transitions in a topological insulator nanoribbon

The spin-helical Dirac fermion topological surface states in a topological insulator nanowire or nanoribbon promise novel topological devices and exotic physics such as Majorana fermions. Here, we report local and non-local transport measurements in Bi2Te3 topological insulator nanoribbons that exhibit quasi-ballistic transport over ∼2 μm. The conductance versus axial magnetic flux φ exhibits Aharonov-Bohm oscillations with maxima occurring alternately at half-integer or integer flux quanta (φ 0 = h/e, where h is Planck's constant and e is the electron charge) depending periodically on the gate-tuned Fermi wavevector (k F) with period 2π/C (where C is the nanoribbon circumference). The conductance versus gate voltage also exhibits k F -periodic oscillations, anti-correlated between φ = 0 and φ 0 /2. These oscillations enable us to probe the Bi2Te3 band structure, and are consistent with the circumferentially quantized topological surface states forming a series of one-dimensional subbands, which undergo periodic magnetic field-induced topological transitions with the disappearance/appearance of the gapless Dirac point with a one-dimensional spin helical mode.