Yew San Hor

Observation of a large-gap topological-insulator class with a single Dirac cone on the surface

Y. Xia, 2 D. Qian, 3 D. Hsieh, 2 L. Wray, A. Pal, H. Lin, A. Bansil, D. Grauer, Y. S. Hor, R. J. Cava, and M. Z. Hasan 2 Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA Princeton Center for Complex Materials, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA Department of Physics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200030, China Department of Physics, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA Department of Chemistry, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA (Dated: Submitted for publication in December 2008)

A tunable topological insulator in the spin helical Dirac transport regime

Helical Dirac fermions—charge carriers that behave as massless relativistic particles with an intrinsic angular momentum (spin) locked to its translational momentum—are proposed to be the key to realizing fundamentally new phenomena in condensed matter physics. Prominent examples include the anomalous quantization of magneto-electric coupling, half-fermion states that are their own antiparticle, and charge fractionalization in a Bose–Einstein condensate, all of which are not possible with conventional Dirac fermions of the graphene variety. Helical Dirac fermions have so far remained elusive owing to the lack of necessary spin-sensitive measurements and because such fermions are forbidden to exist in conventional materials harbouring relativistic electrons, such as graphene or bismuth. It has recently been proposed that helical Dirac fermions may exist at the edges of certain types of topologically ordered insulators—materials with a bulk insulating gap of spin–orbit origin and surface states protected against scattering by time-reversal symmetry—and that their peculiar properties may be accessed provided the insulator is tuned into the so-called topological transport regime. However, helical Dirac fermions have not been observed in existing topological insulators. Here we report the realization and characterization of a tunable topological insulator in a bismuth-based class of material by combining spin-imaging and momentum-resolved spectroscopies, bulk charge compensation, Hall transport measurements and surface quantum control. Our results reveal a spin-momentum locked Dirac cone carrying a non-trivial Berry’s phase that is nearly 100 per cent spin-polarized, which exhibits a tunable topological fermion density in the vicinity of the Kramers point and can be driven to the long-sought topological spin transport regime. The observed topological nodal state is shown to be protected even up to 300 K. Our demonstration of room-temperature topological order and non-trivial spin-texture in stoichiometric Bi2Se3.Mx (Mx indicates surface doping or gating control) paves the way for future graphene-like studies of topological insulators, and applications of the observed spin-polarized edge channels in spintronic and computing technologies possibly at room temperature.Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA Department of Physics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200030, China Swiss Light Source, Paul Scherrer Institute, CH-5232, Villigen, Switzerland Physik-Institut, Universität Zürich-Irchel, 8057 Zürich, Switzerland Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA Department of Physics, Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115, USA Department of Chemistry, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA Princeton Center for Complex Materials, Princeton University, Princeton NJ 08544, USA

Quantum oscillations and hall anomaly of surface states in the topological insulator Bi2Te3.

Carrier Mobility in Topological Insulators In addition to an energy gap, which is a characteristic of all band insulators, the electronic structure of the recently discovered three-dimensional topological insulators Bi2Te3 and Bi2Se3 contains a surface state with a Dirac-like dispersion. This state is predicted to be associated with high carrier mobility. However, the transport properties of the surface state are obscured by the bulk material and challenging to measure. Qu et al. (p. 821, published online 29 July) produced crystals of Bi2Te3 with the Fermi energy lying in the bulk gap and detected quantum oscillations whose magnetic field dependence reveals that they come from a two-dimensional Fermi surface. An anomaly in the Hall conductance originating from the surface state was also observed. The two measurements independently yield mutually consistent high electron mobilities. Quantum oscillations are used to detect the surface current of a topological insulator, yielding high carrier mobilities. Topological insulators are insulating materials that display massless, Dirac-like surface states in which the electrons have only one spin degree of freedom on each surface. These states have been imaged by photoemission, but little information on their transport parameters, for example, mobility, is available. We report the observation of Shubnikov–de Haas oscillations arising from the surface states in nonmetallic crystals of Bi2Te3. In addition, we uncovered a Hall anomaly in weak fields, which enables the surface current to be seen directly. Both experiments yield a surface mobility (9000 to 10,000 centimeter2 per volt-second) that is substantially higher than in the bulk. The Fermi velocity of 4 × 105 meters per second obtained from these transport experiments agrees with angle-resolved photoemission experiments.

Observation of Unconventional Quantum Spin Textures in Topological Insulators

D. Hsieh, Y. Xia, L. Wray, D. Qian, A. Pal, J. H. Dil, 3 F. Meier, 3 J. Osterwalder, G. Bihlmayer, C. L. Kane, Y. S. Hor, R. J. Cava, and M. Z. Hasan 7 Joseph Henry Laboratories of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA Swiss Light Source, Paul Scherrer Institute, CH-5232, Villigen, Switzerland Physik-Institut, Universität Zürich-Irchel, 8057 Zürich, Switzerland Institut für Festkörperforschung, Forschungszentrum Jülich, D-52425 Jülich, Germany Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA Department of Chemistry, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA Princeton Center for Complex Materials, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA (Dated: First submitted to Science on July 22, 2008)A topologically ordered material is characterized by a rare quantum organization of electrons that evades the conventional spontaneously broken symmetry–based classification of condensed matter. Exotic spin-transport phenomena, such as the dissipationless quantum spin Hall effect, have been speculated to originate from a topological order whose identification requires a spin-sensitive measurement, which does not exist to this date in any system. Using Mott polarimetry, we probed the spin degrees of freedom and demonstrated that topological quantum numbers are completely determined from spin texture–imaging measurements. Applying this method to Sb and Bi1–xSbx, we identified the origin of its topological order and unusual chiral properties. These results taken together constitute the first observation of surface electrons collectively carrying a topological quantum Berrys phase and definite spin chirality, which are the key electronic properties component for realizing topological quantum computing bits with intrinsic spin Hall–like topological phenomena.

Topological Surface States Protected from Backscattering by Chiral Spin Texture

Topological insulators are a new class of insulators in which a bulk gap for electronic excitations is generated because of the strong spin–orbit coupling inherent to these systems. These materials are distinguished from ordinary insulators by the presence of gapless metallic surface states, resembling chiral edge modes in quantum Hall systems, but with unconventional spin textures. A key predicted feature of such spin-textured boundary states is their insensitivity to spin-independent scattering, which is thought to protect them from backscattering and localization. Recently, experimental and theoretical efforts have provided strong evidence for the existence of both two- and three-dimensional classes of such topological insulator materials in semiconductor quantum well structures and several bismuth-based compounds, but so far experiments have not probed the sensitivity of these chiral states to scattering. Here we use scanning tunnelling spectroscopy and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy to visualize the gapless surface states in the three-dimensional topological insulator Bi1-xSbx, and examine in detail the influence of scattering from disorder caused by random alloying in this compound. We show that, despite strong atomic scale disorder, backscattering between states of opposite momentum and opposite spin is absent. Our observations demonstrate that the chiral nature of these states protects the spin of the carriers. These chiral states are therefore potentially useful for spin-based electronics, in which long spin coherence is critical, and also for quantum computing applications, where topological protection can enable fault-tolerant information processing.

Superconductivity in CuxBi2Se3 and its Implications for Pairing in the Undoped Topological Insulator

Bi2Se3 is one of a handful of known topological insulators. Here we show that copper intercalation in the van der Waals gaps between the Bi2Se3 layers, yielding an electron concentration of approximately 2x10{20} cm{-3}, results in superconductivity at 3.8 K in CuxBi2Se3 for 0.12<or=x<or=0.15. This demonstrates that Cooper pairing is possible in Bi2Se3 at accessible temperatures, with implications for studying the physics of topological insulators and potential devices.

p -type Bi 2 Se 3 for topological insulator and low-temperature thermoelectric applications

The growth and elementary properties of

Extreme sensitivity of superconductivity to stoichiometry in Fe1+δSe

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Bulk band gap and surface state conduction observed in voltage-tuned crystals of the topological insulator Bi2Se3.

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A topological insulator surface under strong Coulomb, magnetic and disorder perturbations

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