2014/02/25 by M. V. Costache, Marius V. Costache, I. Neumann +10
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Condensed matter physics #Electric field #Electrical engineering #Electrical resistivity and conductivity #Graphene research and applications #Materials science #Omega #Optics #Phonon #Physics #Quantum many-body systems #Quantum mechanics #Saturation (graph theory) #Scattering #Topological Materials and Phenomena #Topological insulator #Topology (electrical circuits) #cond-mat.mes-hall
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.112.086601
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 086601 (2014) · Supplementary Material at: http://journals.aps.org/prl/supplemental/10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.086601/TIPhonon_SM.pdf
openalex publication_date 2014/02/25 · arxiv created 2014/04/08 · arxiv updated 2015/06/19 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We report on electric-field and temperature-dependent transport measurements in exfoliated thin crystals of the Bi2Se3 topological insulator. At low temperatures (<50 K) and when the chemical potential lies inside the bulk gap, the crystal resistivity is strongly temperature dependent, reflecting inelastic scattering due to the thermal activation of optical phonons. A linear increase of the current with voltage is obtained up to a threshold value at which current saturation takes place. We show that the activated behavior, the voltage threshold, and the saturation current can all be quantitatively explained by considering a single optical-phonon mode with energy \ensuremathℏ\mathrm\ensuremathΩ\ensuremath≈8 meV. This phonon mode strongly interacts with the surface states of the material and represents the dominant source of scattering at the surface at high electric fields.