N. de Jong

Kondo hybridisation and the origin of metallic states at the (001) surface of SmB6

SmB6, a well-known Kondo insulator, has been proposed to be an ideal topological insulator with states of topological character located in a clean, bulk electronic gap, namely the Kondo hybridisation gap. Seeing as the Kondo gap arises from many body electronic correlations, this would place SmB6 at the head of a new material class: topological Kondo insulators. Here, for the first time, we show that the k-space characteristics of the Kondo hybridisation process is the key to unravelling the origin of the two types of metallic states observed directly by ARPES in the electronic band structure of SmB6(001). One group of these states is essentially of bulk origin, and cuts the Fermi level due to the position of the chemical potential 20 meV above the lowest lying 5d-4f hybridisation zone. The other metallic state is more enigmatic, being weak in intensity, but represents a good candidate for a topological surface state. However, before this claim can be substantiated by an unequivocal measurement of its massless dispersion relation, our data raises the bar in terms of the ARPES resolution required, as we show there to be a strong renormalisation of the hybridisation gaps by a factor 2-3 compared to theory, following from the knowledge of the true position of the chemical potential and a careful comparison with the predictions from recent LDA+Gutzwiler calculations. All in all, these key pieces of evidence act as triangulation markers, providing a detailed description of the electronic landscape in SmB6, pointing the way for future, ultrahigh resolution ARPES experiments to achieve a direct measurement of the Dirac cones in the first topological Kondo insulator.

Low carrier concentration crystals of the topological insulator Bi2-xSbxTe3-ySey: a magnetotransport study

In 3D topological insulators achieving a genuine bulk-insulating state is an important research topic. Recently, the material system (Bi,Sb)2(Te,Se)3 (BSTS) has been proposed as a topological insulator with high resistivity and a low carrier concentration (Ren et al 2011 Phys. Rev. B 84 165311). Here we present a study to further refine the bulk-insulating properties of BSTS. We have synthesized BSTS single crystals with compositions around x = 0.5 and y = 1.3. Resistance and Hall effect measurements show high resistivity and record low bulk carrier density for the composition Bi

Dirac states with knobs on: Interplay of external parameters and the surface electronic properties of three-dimensional topological insulators

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Insights from angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy on the metallic states of YbB6(001): E(k) dispersion, temporal changes, and spatial variation

Sb

In-situ spectroscopy of intrinsic Bi2Te3 topological insulator thin films and impact of extrinsic defects

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Angle-resolved and core-level photoemission study of interfacing the topological insulator Bi1.5Sb0.5Te1.7Se1.3 with Ag, Nb, and Fe

Te

Micro-metric electronic patterning of a topological band structure using a photon beam

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Trigger of the ubiquitous surface band bending in 3D topological insulators

Se

Comparative study of rare earth hexaborides using high resolution angle-resolved photoemission

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Erratum: Angle-resolved and core-level photoemission study of interfacing the topological insulatorBi1.5Sb0.5Te1.7Se1.3with Ag, Nb, and Fe [Phys. Rev. B92, 075127 (2015)]

. The analysis of the resistance measured for crystals with different thicknesses within a parallel resistor model shows that the surface contribution to the electrical transport amounts to 97% when the sample thickness is reduced to 1 μm. The magnetoconductance of exfoliated BSTS nanoflakes shows 2D weak antilocalization with