Electron interaction-driven insulating ground state in Bi2Se3topological insulators in the two-dimensional limit

2010/11/04 by Minhao Liu, Cui‐Zu Chang, Cui-Zu Chang +13 · 1 citation
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #Graphene research and applications #Topological Materials and Phenomena #cond-mat.mtrl-sci #cond-mat.str-el

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.83.165440

published as Phys. Rev. B 83, 165440 (2011) · 4 figures

arxiv created 2010/11/04 · openalex publication_date 2011/04/26 · arxiv updated 2013/05/29 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

We report a transport study of ultrathin Bi₂Se₃ topological insulators with thickness from one quintuple layer to six quintuple layers grown on sapphire by molecular beam epitaxy. At low temperatures, the film resistance increases logarithmically with decreasing temperature, revealing an insulating ground state. The insulating behavior becomes more pronounced in thinner films. The sharp increase of resistance with magnetic field, however, indicates the existence of weak antilocalization originated from the topological protection. We show that this unusual insulating ground state in the two-dimensional limit of topological insulators is induced by the combined effect of strong electron interaction and topological delocalization.

Citations

• Quantum Transport of Massless Dirac Fermions
• Impurity Effect on Weak Antilocalization in the Topological InsulatorBi2Te3
• Topological Delocalization of Two-Dimensional Massless Dirac Fermions
• Molti passi avanti ma resta da fare una lunga strada
• Massive Dirac fermions and spin physics in an ultrathin film of topological insulator
• The birth of topological insulators
• Topological Insulators
• Spin-Orbit Interaction and Magnetoresistance in the Two Dimensional Random System

Cited by

• Probing Dirac Fermion Dynamics in Topological InsulatorBi2Se3Films with a Scanning Tunneling Microscope