2012/03/28 by Fan Zhang, C. L. Kane, E. J. Mele · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.mtrl-sci
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.86.081303
published as Phys. Rev. B 86, 081303(R) (2012) · 4.1 pages, 2 figures and 1 table
arxiv created 2012/03/28 · arxiv updated 2013/05/01
We develop an effective bulk model with a topological boundary condition to study the surface states of topological insulators. We find that the Dirac point energy, the band curvature and the spin texture of surface states are crystal face-dependent. For a given face on a sphere, the Dirac point energy is determined by the bulk physics that breaks p-h symmetry in the surface normal direction and is tunable by surface potentials that preserve T symmetry. Constant energy contours near the Dirac point are ellipses with spin textures that are helical on the S/N pole, collapsed to one dimension on any side face, and tilted out-of-plane otherwise. Our findings identify a route to engineering the Dirac point physics on the surfaces of real materials.