The substrate strain mediated magnetotransport properties of surface states in topological insulators

Recent experiments reveal that the strained bulk HgTe can be regarded as a three-dimensional topological insulator (TI). We further explore the strain effects on magnetotransport in HgTe at magnetic field. We find that the substrate strain associated with the surface index of carriers, can remove the surfaces degeneracy in Landau levels. This accordingly induces the well separated surface quantum Hall plateaus and Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations. These results can be used to generate and detect surface polarization, not only in HgTe but also in a broad class of TIs, which would be very great news for electronic applications of TIs.