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Register a new userMagnetic and defect probes of the SmB$_6$ surface state
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The impact of non-magnetic and magnetic impurities on topological insulators is a central problem concerning their fundamental physics and possible novel spintronics and quantum computing applications. SmB$_6$, predicted to be a topological Kondo insulator, is considered a benchmark material. Using a spin-polarized tip in scanning tunneling spectroscopy destroys the signature peak of the topological surface state, revealing its spin texture. Further, combining local STS with macroscopic transport measurements on SmB$_6$ containing different substitutions enables us to investigate the effect of impurities. The surface states around impurities are locally suppressed with different length scales depending on their magnetic properties and, for sufficiently high impurity level, globally destroyed. Our study points directly to the topological nature of SmB$_6$, and unveils, microscopically and macroscopically, how impurities -- magnetic or non-magnetic -- affect topological surface states.
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SmB$_6$, a so called Kondo insulator, is recently discussed as a candidate material for a strong topological insulator. We present detailed atomically resolved topographic information on the (001) surface from more than a dozen SmB$_6$ samples. Atomically flat, {it in situ} cleaved surfaces often exhibit B- and Sm-terminated surfaces as well as reconstructed and non-reconstructed areas {it coexisting} on different length scales. The terminations are unambiguously identified. In addition, electronic inhomogeneities are observed which likely result from the polar nature of the (001) surface and may indicate an inhomogeneous Sm valence at the surface of SmB$_6$. In addition, atomically resolved topographies on a (110) surface are discussed.
We study the transport properties of the Kondo insulator SmB$_6$ with a specialized configuration designed to distinguish bulk-dominated conduction from surface-dominated conduction. We find that as the material is cooled below 4 K, it exhibits a crossover from bulk to surface conduction with a fully insulating bulk. We take the robustness and magnitude of the surface conductivity, as is manifest in the literature of SmB$_6$, to be strong evidence for the topological insulator metallic surface states recently predicted for this material.
The temperature and thickness dependencies of the in-plane anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR) of SmB$_6$ thin films are reported. We find that the AMR changes sign from negative ($rho_{||}<rho_{perp}$) at high temperatures to positive ($rho_{||}>rho_{perp}$) at low temperatures. The temperature, T$_s$, at which this sign change occurs, decreases with increasing film thickness $t$ and T$_s$ vanishes for $t$ $>$ 30 nm. We interpret our results in the framework of a competition between two components: a negative bulk contribution and a positive surface AMR.
The search for a Fermi surface in the absence of a conventional Fermi liquid has thus far yielded very few potential candidates. Among promising materials are spin-frustrated Mott insulators near the insulator-metal transition, where theory predicts a Fermi surface associated with neutral low energy excitations. Here we reveal another route to experimentally realise a Fermi surface in the absence of a Fermi liquid by the experimental study of a Kondo insulator SmB$_6$ positioned close to the insulator-metal transition. We present experimental signatures down to low temperatures ($ll 1$ K) associated with a Fermi surface in the bulk, including a sizeable linear specific heat coefficient, and on the application of a finite magnetic field, bulk magnetic quantum oscillations, finite quantum oscillatory entropy, and substantial enhancement in thermal conductivity well below the charge gap energy scale. Thus, the weight of evidence indicates that despite an extreme instance of Fermi liquid breakdown in Kondo insulating SmB$_6$, a Fermi surface arises from novel itinerant low energy excitations that couple to magnetic fields, but not weak DC electric fields.
We investigated the crystal-electric field ground state of the 4$f$ manifold in the strongly correlated topological insulator SmB$_6$ using core level non-resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (NIXS). The directional dependence of the scattering function that arises from higher multipole transitions establishes unambiguously that the $Gamma_8$ quartet state of the Sm $f^5$ $J$=$5/2$ configuration governs the ground-state symmetry and hence the topological properties of SmB$_6$. Our findings contradict the results of density functional calculations reported so far.
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