Capacitive scheme to detect the topological magnetoelectric effect

Abstract

The topological magnetoelectric effect (TME) is a defining property of three-dimensional $\mathbb{Z}_{2}$ topological insulators that was predicted on theoretical grounds more than a decade ago, but has still not been directly measured. In this Letter we propose a strategy for direct measurement of the TME and discuss the precision of the effect in real devices with charge and spin disorder.