Electrically tunable surface-to-bulk coherent coupling in topological insulator thin films

2011/04/30 by Hadar Steinberg, Jean-Baptiste Laloë, Valla Fatemi +3 · 3 citations
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Ambipolar diffusion #Coherence (philosophical gambling strategy) #Condensed matter physics #Conductance #Coupling (piping) #Electron #Graphene research and applications #Insulator (electricity) #Materials science #Modulation (music) #Nanotechnology #Optics #Optoelectronics #Physics #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #Quantum mechanics #Scattering #Surface (topology) #Surface states #Thin film #Topological Materials and Phenomena #Topological insulator #Topology (electrical circuits) #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.mtrl-sci

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.84.233101

published as Physical Review B, 84, 233101 (2011)

openalex publication_date 2011/12/05 · arxiv created 2012/01/18 · arxiv updated 2012/01/19 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

We study coherent electronic transport in charge-density-tunable microdevices patterned from thin films of the topological insulator (TI) Bi₂Se₃. The devices exhibit pronounced electric field effect, including ambipolar modulation of the resistance with an on-and-off ratio of 500%. We show that the weak antilocalization correction to conductance is sensitive to the number of coherently coupled channels, which in a TI includes the top and bottom surfaces and the bulk carriers. These are separated into coherently independent channels by the application of gate voltage and at elevated temperatures. Our results are consistent with a model where channel separation is determined by a competition between the phase coherence time and the surface-to-bulk scattering time.

Citations

• Impurity Effect on Weak Antilocalization in the Topological InsulatorBi2Te3
• Electron interaction-driven insulating ground state in Bi2Se3topological insulators in the two-dimensional limit
• Topological insulators and superconductors
• Molti passi avanti ma resta da fare una lunga strada
• Two-dimensional surface state in the quantum limit of a topological insulator
• The birth of topological insulators
• Exciton Condensation and Charge Fractionalization in a Topological Insulator Film
• Evidence for electron-electron interaction in topological insulator thin films
• Topological Insulators
• Aharonov–Bohm interference in topological insulator nanoribbons
• Spin-Orbit Interaction and Magnetoresistance in the Two Dimensional Random System

Cited by

• Ultra-low carrier concentration and surface-dominant transport in antimony-doped Bi2Se3 topological insulator nanoribbons
• Weak antilocalization and conductance fluctuation in a submicrometer-sized wire of epitaxial Bi<mml:mrow/>2Se<mml:mrow/>3
• Theory of bulk-surface coupling in topological insulator films
• Weak antilocalization beyond the fully diffusive regime in Pb1−xSnxSe topological quantum wells