Persistent currents in topological and trivial confinement in silicene

Abstract

We consider states bound at the flip of the electric field in buckled silicene. Along the electric flip lines a topological confinement is formed with the orientation of the charge current and the resulting magnetic dipole moment determined by the valley index. We compare the topological confinement to the trivial one that is due to a local reduction of the vertical electric field but without energy gap inversion. For the latter the valley does not protect the orientation of the magnetic dipole moment from inversion by external magnetic field. We demonstrate that the topologically confined states can couple and form extended bonding or antibonding orbitals with the energy splitting influenced by the geometry and the external magnetic field.