2014/09/03 by Hong-Chao Liu, Hai-Zhou Lu, Hong-Tao He +7
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Chemical and Physical Properties of Materials #Conductivity #Electron #Quantum decoherence #Surface (topology) #Surface and Thin Film Phenomena #Surface conductivity #Surface states #Thin film #Topological Materials and Phenomena #Topological insulator #Weak localization #cond-mat.mes-hall
paper · pdf · doi:10.1021/nn504014e
published as ACS Nano 8, 9616-9621 (2014) · 27 pages, article+supplemental materials, published in ACS Nano
openalex publication_date 2014/09/03 · arxiv created 2014/10/08 · arxiv updated 2014/10/09 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Recently, a logarithmic decrease of conductivity has been observed in topological insulators at low temperatures, implying a tendency of localization of surface electrons. Here, we report quantum transport experiments on the topological insulator Bi2Te3 thin films with arrayed antidot nanostructures. With increasing density of the antidots, a systematic decrease is observed in the slope of the logarithmic temperature-dependent conductivity curves, indicating the electron-electron interaction can be tuned by the antidots. Meanwhile, the weak antilocalization effect revealed in magnetoconductivity exhibits an enhanced dominance of electron-electron interaction among decoherence mechanisms. The observation can be understood from an antidot-induced reduction of the effective dielectric constant, which controls the interactions between the surface electrons. Our results clarify the indispensable role of the electron-electron interaction in the localization of surface electrons and indicate the localization of surface electrons in an interacting topological insulator.