Infrared and Raman spectroscopy measurements of a transition in the crystal structure and a closing of the energy gap of BiTeI under pressure

Abstract

BiTeI is a giant Rashba spin splitting system, in which a non-centro symmetric topological phase has recently been suggested to appear under high pressure. We investigated the optical properties of this compound, reflectivity and transmission, under pressures up to $15$ GPa. The gap feature in the optical conductivity vanishes above $p\sim 9$ GPa and does not reappear up to at least $15$ GPa. The plasma edge, associated with intrinsically doped charge carriers, is smeared out through a phase transition at $9$ GPa. Using high pressure Raman spectroscopy, we follow the vibrational modes of BiTeI, providing additional clear evidence that the transition at 9 GPa involves a change of crystal structure. This change of crystal structure possibly inhibits the high-pressure topological phase from occurring.

11 pages, 7 figures, with Supplemental Material, Accepted by PRL Dec 17, 2013

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• Unexpected mass acquisition of Dirac fermions at the quantum phase transition of a topological insulator
• Topological-Metal to Band-Insulator Transition in (Bi1-xInx)2Se3 Thin Films
• Signatures of a Pressure-Induced Topological Quantum Phase Transition in BiTeI
• Optical properties of Bi2Te2Se at ambient and high pressure
• Many-body effects on the Rashba-type spin splitting in bulk bismuth tellurohalides

Cited by in corpus (25)

• Colloquium: Topological Band Theory
• Strongly enhanced Berry dipole at topological phase transitions in BiTeI
• Topological quantum phase transition and superconductivity induced by pressure in the bismuth tellurohalide BiTeI
• Optical properties of BiTeBr and BiTeCl
• Exfoliation of single layer BiTeI flakes
• Pressure-induced topological phase transition in polar semiconductor BiTeBr
• Bulk Signatures of Pressure-Induced Band Inversion and Topological Phase Transitions in Pb${}_{1-x}$Sn${}_x$Se
• Temperature dependence of the bulk Rashba splitting in the bismuth tellurohalides
• Pressure effects on crystal and electronic structure of bismuth tellurohalides
• Superconductivity in Dense Rashba Semiconductor BiTeCl
• Two linear regimes in optical conductivity of a Type-I Weyl semimetal: the case of elemental tellurium
• Ab initio electronic structure and optical conductivity of bismuth tellurohalides
• Crystal and electronic structure of BiTeI, AuTeI, and PdTeI compounds: A dispersion-corrected density-functional study
• Tuning the Fermi level through the Dirac point of giant Rashba semiconductor BiTeI with pressure
• Temperature dependence of the topological phase transition of BiTeI from first principles
• Optical investigation of thermoelectric topological crystalline insulator Pb${}_{0.77}$Sn${}_{0.23}$Se
• Interlayer RKKY Coupling in Bulk Rashba Semiconductors under Topological Phase Transition
• Unusual Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations in BiTeCl
• 2D and 3D topological phases in BiTe$X$ compounds
• Pressure dependence of the band-gap energy in BiTeI
• BiTeCl and BiTeBr: a comparative high-pressure optical study
• Conductivity of two-dimensional small gap semiconductors and topological insulators in strong Coulomb disorder
• Optical signatures of phase transitions and structural modulation in elemental tellurium under pressure
• Interplay between disorder and inversion symmetry: Extreme enhancement of the mobility near the Weyl point in BiTeI
• Spin-Mediated Direct Photon Scattering by Plasmons in BiTeI