No Arabic abstract
We developed the theory which describes the Floquet engineering of surface electronic modes in bulk mercury telluride (HgTe) by a circularly polarized electromagnetic field. The analysis shows that the field results in appearance of the surface states which arise from the mixing of conduction and valence bands of HgTe. Their branches lie near the center of the Brillouin zone and have the Dirac dispersion characteristic for topological states. Besides them, the irradiation induces the gap between the conduction and valence bands of HgTe. Thus, the irradiation can turn mercury telluride into topological insulator from gapless semiconductor. It is demonstrated that the optically induced states differ substantially from the non-topological surface states existing in HgTe without irradiation. The structure of the found states is studied both analytically and numerically in the broad range of their parameters.
We present the theory describing the various surface electronic states arisen from the mixing of conduction and valence bands in a strained mercury telluride (HgTe) bulk material. We demonstrate that the strain-induced band gap in the Brillouin zone center of HgTe results in the surface states of two different kinds. Surface states of the first kind exist in the small region of electron wave vectors near the center of the Brillouin zone and have the Dirac linear electron dispersion characteristic for topological states. The surface states of the second kind exist only far from the center of the Brillouin zone and have the parabolic dispersion for large wave vectors. The structure of these surface electronic states is studied both analytically and numerically in the broad range of their parameters, aiming to develop its systematic understanding for the relevant model Hamiltonian. The results bring attention to the rich surface physics relevant for topological systems.
We have performed angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy on Pb(Bi1-xSbx)2Te4, which is a member of lead-based ternary tellurides and has been theoretically proposed as a candidate for a new class of three-dimensional topological insulators (TIs). In PbBi2Te4, we found a topological surface state with a hexagonally deformed Dirac-cone band dispersion, indicating that this material is a strong TI with a single topological surface state at the Brillouin-zone center. Partial replacement of Bi with Sb causes a marked change in the Dirac carrier concentration, leading to the sign change of Dirac carriers from n-type to p-type. The Pb(Bi1-xSbx)2Te4 system with tunable Dirac carriers thus provides a new platform for investigating exotic topological phenomena.
The emerging field of spinoptronics has a potential to supersede the functionality of modern electronics, while a proper description of strong light-matter coupling pose the most intriguing questions from both fundamental scientific and technological perspectives. In this paper we address a highly relevant issue for such a development. We theoretically explore spin dynamics on the surface of a 3D topological insulator (TI) irradiated with an off-resonant high-frequency electromagnetic wave. The strong coupling between electrons and the electromagnetic wave drastically modifies the spin properties of TI. The effects of irradiation are shown to result in anisotropy of electron energy spectrum near the Dirac point and suppression of spin current and are investigated in detail in this work.
The surface of topological insulators is proposed as a promising platform for spintronics and quantum information applications. In particular, when time- reversal symmetry is broken, topological surface states are expected to exhibit a wide range of exotic spin phenomena for potential implementation in electronics. Such devices need to be fabricated using nanoscale artificial thin films. It is of critical importance to study the spin behavior of artificial topological MBE thin films associated with magnetic dopants, and with regards to quantum size effects related to surface-to-surface tunneling as well as experimentally isolate time-reversal breaking from non-intrinsic surface electronic gaps. Here we present observation of the first (and thorough) study of magnetically induced spin reorientation phenomena on the surface of a topological insulator. Our results reveal dramatic rearrangements of the spin configuration upon magnetic doping contrasted with chemically similar nonmagnetic doping as well as with quantum tunneling phenomena in ultra-thin high quality MBE films. While we observe that the spin rearrangement induced by quantum tunneling occurs in a time-reversal invariant fashion, we present critical and systematic observation of an out-of-plane spin texture evolution correlated with magnetic interactions, which breaks time-reversal symmetry, demonstrating microscopic TRB at a Kramers point on the surface.
A point charge near the surface of a topological insulator (TI) with broken time-reversal symmetry is predicted to generate an image magnetic charge in addition to an image electric charge. We use scanning tunneling spectroscopy to study the image potential states (IPS) of the topological semimetal Sb(111) surface. We observe five IPS with discrete energy levels that are well described by a one-dimensional model. The spatial variation of the IPS energies and lifetimes near surface step edges shows the first local signature of resonant interband scattering between IPS, which suggests that image charges too may interact. Our work motivates the exploration of the TI surface geometry necessary to realize and manipulate a magnetic charge.