Landau Quantization and the Thickness Limit of Topological Insulator Thin Films ofSb2Te3

2011/11/07 by Yeping Jiang, Yilin Wang, Mu Chen +10 · 231 citations
Materials Science · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Algorithm #Computer graphics (images) #Computer science #Condensed matter physics #Graphene research and applications #Limit (mathematics) #Mathematical analysis #Mathematics #Phase-change materials and chalcogenides #Physics #Quantization (signal processing) #Topological Materials and Phenomena #Topological insulator #cond-mat.mtrl-sci

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.108.016401

published in Physical Review Letters 108(1), 016401 (American Physical Society) · 17 pages, 4 figures

arxiv created 2011/11/07 · openalex publication_date 2012/01/03 · arxiv updated 2012/01/05 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

We report the experimental observation of Landau quantization of molecular beam epitaxy grown Sb2Te3 thin films by a low-temperature scanning tunneling microscope. Different from all the reported systems, the Landau quantization in a Sb2Te3 topological insulator is not sensitive to the intrinsic substitutional defects in the films. As a result, a nearly perfect linear energy dispersion of surface states as a 2D massless Dirac fermion system is achieved. We demonstrate that four quintuple layers are the thickness limit for a Sb2Te3 thin film being a 3D topological insulator. The mechanism of the Landau-level broadening is discussed in terms of enhanced quasiparticle lifetime.

Citations

• Electron interaction-driven insulating ground state in Bi2Se3topological insulators in the two-dimensional limit
• Topological insulators and superconductors
• Massive Dirac fermions and spin physics in an ultrathin film of topological insulator
• Topological Insulators with Inversion Symmetry
• Transmission of topological surface states through surface barriers
• Experimental Demonstration of Topological Surface States Protected by Time-Reversal Symmetry
• Evidence for electron-electron interaction in topological insulator thin films
• Topological Insulators
• Experimental observation of the quantum Hall effect and Berry's phase in graphene
• The Quantum Spin Hall Effect: Theory and Experiment
• Scanning Tunneling Spectroscopy of Graphene on Graphite

Cited by

• Berry-Phase Switch in Electrostatically Confined Topological Surface States
• Fermi-Level Tuning of EpitaxialSb2Te3Thin Films on Graphene by Regulating Intrinsic Defects and Substrate Transfer Doping