Inelastic Electron Tunneling Spectroscopy for Topological Insulators

Abstract

Inelastic Electron Tuneling Spectroscopy (IETS) is a powerful spectroscopy that allows one to investigate the nature of local excitations and energy transfer in the system of interest. We study IETS for Topological Insulators (TI) and investigate the role of inelastic scattering on the Dirac node states on the surface of TIs. Local inelastic scattering is shown to significantly modify the Dirac node spectrum. In the weak coupling limit, peaks and steps are induced in second derivative $d^{2}I/d{V}^2$. In the strong coupling limit, the local negative U centers are formed at impurity sites, and the Dirac cone structure is fully destroyed locally. At intermediate coupling resonance peaks emerge. We map out the evolution of the resonance peaks from weak to strong coupling, which interpolate nicely between the two limits. There is a sudden qualitative change of behavior at intermediate coupling, indicating the possible existence of a local quantum phase transition. We also find that even for a simple local phonon mode the inherent coupling of spin and orbital degrees in TI leads to the spin polarized texture in inelastic Friedel oscillations induced by local mode.

5 pages, 5 figures

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• Topological Insulators
• Topological insulators and superconductors
• Topological Insulators in Three Dimensions
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• The Helical Liquid and the Edge of Quantum Spin Hall Systems
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• STM imaging of impurity resonances on Bi${}_2$Se${}_3$
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• Surface imaging of inelastic Friedel oscillations
• Inelastic Tunneling Spectroscopy in a D-wave Superconductor
• Real-Space Imaging of Inelastic Friedel-like Surface Oscillations Emerging from Molecular Adsorbates
• Localized Bosonic Modes in Superconductors
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Cited by in corpus (14)

• Spin-helical transport in normal and superconducting topological insulators
• Chiral Phonon Induced Spin-Polarization
• Impurity scattering on the surface of topological insulator thin films
• Geometric driving of two-level quantum systems
• Unstable and elusive superconductors
• Inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy for probing strongly correlated many-body systems by scanning tunneling microscopy
• Inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy at local defects in graphene
• Driving Topological Phases by Spatially Inhomogeneous Pairing Centers
• Molecular Graphene under the Eye of Scattering Theory
• Inelastic-impurity-scattering-induced spin texture and topological transitions in surface electron waves
• Josephson coupling between superconducting islands on single and bilayer graphene
• Negative-U Superconductivity on the Surface of Topological Insulators
• Time-dependent potential impurity in topological insulator
• Time-reversal invariant resonant backscattering on a topological insulator surface driven by a time-periodic gate voltage