2009/12/17 by L. Andrew Wray, Su‐Yang Xu, Wray, L. +17
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Diamond and Carbon-based Materials Research #FOS: Physical sciences #Graphene research and applications #Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el) #Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con) #Topological Materials and Phenomena
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.0912.3341
openalex publication_date 2009/12/17 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The Cu-doped topological insulator Bi2Se3 has recently been found to undergo a superconducting transition upon cooling, raising the possibilities that it is the first known "topological superconductor" or realizes a novel non-Abelian superconducting state. Its true nature depends critically on the bulk and surface state band topology. We present the first photoemission spectroscopy results where by examining the band topology at many different copper doping values we discover that the topologically protected spin-helical surface states remain well protected and separate from bulk Dirac bands at the Fermi level where Copper pairing occurs in the optimally doped topological insulator. The addition of copper is found to result in nonlinear electron doping and strong renormalization of the topological surface states. These highly unusual observations strongly suggest that superconductivity on the topological surface of CuxBi2Se3 cannot be of any conventional type in account of the general topological theory. Characteristics of the three dimensional bulk Dirac band structure are reported for the first time with respect to the superconducting doping state and topological invariant properties which should help formulate a specific theory for this novel superconductor.