Xiaoqian Dang

Band structure and spin texture of Bi 2 Se 3 3 d ferromagnetic metal interface

The spin-helical surface states in three-dimensional topological insulator (TI), such as Bi2Se3, are predicted to have superior efficiency in converting charge current into spin polarization. This property is said to be responsible for the giant spin-orbit torques observed in ferromagnetic metal/TI structures. In this work, using first-principles and model tight-binding calculations, we investigate the interface between the topological insulator Bi2Se3 and 3d-transition ferromagnetic metals Ni and Co. We find that the difference in the work functions of the topological insulator and the ferromagnetic metals shift the topological surface states down about 0.5 eV below the Fermi energy where the hybridization of these surface states with the metal bands destroys their helical spin structure. The band alignment of Bi2Se3 and Ni (Co) places the Fermi energy far in the conduction band of bulk Bi2Se3, where the spin of the carriers is aligned with the magnetization in the metal. Our results indicate that the topological surface states are unlikely to be responsible for the huge spin-orbit torque effect observed experimentally in these systems.

Complex band structure of topological insulator Bi2Se3

Topological insulators are very interesting from a fundamental point of view, and their unique properties may be useful for electronic and spintronic device applications. From the point of view of applications it is important to understand the decay behavior of carriers injected in the band gap of the topological insulator, which is determined by its complex band structure (CBS). Using first-principles calculations, we investigate the dispersion and symmetry of the complex bands of Bi2Se3 family of three-dimensional topological insulators. We compare the CBS of a band insulator and a topological insulator and follow the CBS evolution in both when the spin-orbit interaction is turned on. We find significant differences in the CBS linked to the topological band structure. In particular, our results demonstrate that the evanescent states in Bi2Se3 are non-trivially complex, i.e. contain both the real and imaginary contributions. This explains quantitatively the oscillatory behavior of the band gap obtained from Bi2Se3 (0 0 0 1) slab calculations.

Local currents in a 2D topological insulator.

Symmetry protected edge states in 2D topological insulators are interesting both from the fundamental point of view as well as from the point of view of potential applications in nanoelectronics as perfectly conducting 1D channels and functional elements of circuits. Here using a simple tight-binding model and the Landauer-Büttiker formalism we explore local current distributions in a 2D topological insulator focusing on effects of non-magnetic impurities and vacancies as well as finite size effects. For an isolated edge state, we show that the local conductance decays into the bulk in an oscillatory fashion as explained by the complex band structure of the bulk topological insulator. We demonstrate that although the net conductance of the edge state is topologically protected, impurity scattering leads to intricate local current patterns. In the case of vacancies we observe vortex currents of certain chirality, originating from the scattering of current-carrying electrons into states localized at the edges of hollow regions. For finite size strips of a topological insulator we predict the formation of an oscillatory band gap in the spectrum of the edge states, the emergence of Friedel oscillations caused by an open channel for backscattering from an impurity and antiresonances in conductance when the Fermi energy matches the energy of the localized state created by an impurity.