No Arabic abstract
The discovery of topological insulators (TIs) and their unique electronic properties has motivated research into a variety of applications, including quantum computing. It has been proposed that TI surface states will be energetically discretized in a quantum dot nanoparticle. These discretized states could then be used as basis states for a qubit that is more resistant to decoherence. In this work, prototypical TI Bi2Se3 nanoparticles are grown on GaAs (001) using the droplet epitaxy technique, and we demonstrate the control of nanoparticle height, area, and density by changing the duration of bismuth deposition and substrate temperature. Within the growth window studied, nanoparticles ranged from 5-15 nm tall with an 8-18nm equivalent circular radius, and the density could be relatively well controlled by changing the substrate temperature and bismuth deposition time.
We report the growth of single-crystalline Bi2Se3 nanoribbons with lengths up to several millimeters via a catalyst-free physical vapor deposition method. Scanning transmission electron microscopy analysis reveals that the nanoribbons grow along the (1120) direction. We obtain a detailed characterization of the electronic structure of the Bi2Se3 nanoribbons from measurements of Shubnikov-de Haas (SdH) quantum oscillations. Angular dependent magneto-transport measurements reveal a dominant two-dimensional contribution originating from surface states and weak contribution from the bulk states. The catalyst-free synthesis yields high-purity nanocrystals enabling the observation of a large number of SdH oscillation periods and allowing for an accurate determination of the pi-Berry phase, one of the key features of Dirac fermions in topological insulators. The long-length nanoribbons can empower the potential for fabricating multiple nanoelectronic devices on a single nanoribbon.
Insulating substrates are crucial for electrical transport study and room temperature application of topological insulator films at thickness of only several nanometers. High quality quantum well films of Bi2Se3, a typical three-dimensional topological insulator, have been grown on alpha-Al2O3 (sapphire) (0001) by molecular beam epitaxy. The films exhibit well-defined quantum well states and surface states, suggesting the uniform thickness over macroscopic area. The Bi2Se3 thin films on sapphire (0001) provide a good system to study low-dimensional physics of topological insulators since conduction contribution from the substrate is negligibly small.
Electrical field control of the carrier density of topological insulators (TI) has greatly expanded the possible practical use of these materials. However, the combination of low temperature local probe studies and a gate tunable TI device remains challenging. We have overcome this limitation by scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy measurements on in-situ molecular beam epitaxy growth of Bi2Se3 films on SrTiO3 substrates with pre-patterned electrodes. Using this gating method, we are able to shift the Fermi level of the top surface states by 250 meV on a 3 nm thick Bi2Se3 device. We report field effect studies of the surface state dispersion, band gap, and electronic structure at the Fermi level.
The three dimensional (3D) topological insulators are predicted to exhibit a 3D Dirac semimetal state in critical regime of topological to trivial phase transition. Here we demonstrate the first experimental evidence of 3D Dirac semimetal state in topological insulator Bi2Se3 with bulk carrier concentration of ~ 10^19 cm^{-3}, using magneto-transport measurements. At low temperatures, the resistivity of our Bi2Se3 crystal exhibits clear Shubnikov-de Haas (SdH) oscillations above 6T. The analysis of these oscillations through Lifshitz-Onsanger and Lifshitz-Kosevich theory reveals a non-trivial pi Berry phase coming from 3D bands, which is a decisive signature of 3D Dirac semimetal state. The large value of Dingle temperature and natural selenium vacancies in our crystal suggest that the observed 3D Dirac semimetal state is an outcome of enhanced strain field and weaker effective spin-orbit coupling.
Topological insulator nanoribbons (TI NRs) provide a useful platform to explore the phase-coherent quantum electronic transport of topological surface states, which is crucial for the development of topological quantum devices. When applied with an axial magnetic field, the TI NR exhibits magnetoconductance (MC) oscillations with a flux period of h/e, i.e., Aharonov-Bohm (AB) oscillations, and h/2e, i.e., Altshuler-Aronov-Spivak (AAS) oscillations. Herein, we present an extensive study of the AB and AAS oscillations in Sb doped Bi$_2$Se$_3$ TI NR as a function of the gate voltage, revealing phase-alternating topological AB oscillations. Moreover, the ensemble-averaged fast Fourier transform analysis on the Vg dependent MC curves indicates the suppression of the quantum interference oscillation amplitudes near the Dirac point, which is attributed to the suppression of the phase coherence length within the low carrier density region. The weak antilocalization analysis on the perpendicular MC curves confirms the idea of the suppressed coherence length near the Dirac point in the TI NR.