Direct Measurement of Surface Transport on a Bulk Topological Insulator

Abstract

Topological insulators are guaranteed to support metallic surface states on an insulating bulk, and one should thus expect that the electronic transport in these materials is dominated by the surfaces states. Alas, due to the high remaining bulk conductivity, surface contributions to transport have so-far only been singled out indirectly via quantum oscillations, or for devices based on gated and doped topological insulator thin films, a situation in which the surface carrier mobility could be limited by defect and interface scattering. Here we present the first direct measurement of surface-dominated conduction on an atomically clean surface of bulk-insulating Bi${}_2$Te${}_2$Se. Using nano-scale four point setups with variable contact distance, we show that the transport at 30 K is two-dimensional rather than three-dimensional and by combining these measurements with angle-resolved photoemission results from the same crystals, we find a surface state mobility of 390(30) cm${}^2$V${}^{-1}$s${}^{-1}$ at 30 K at a carrier concentration of 8.71(7)$\times 10^{12}$ cm${}^{-2}$.

References in corpus (13)

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• Quantum Spin Hall Insulator State in HgTe Quantum Wells
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Cited by in corpus (29)

• Colloquium: Topological Band Theory
• Intrinsic conduction through topological surface states of insulating Bi${}_2$Te${}_3$ epitaxial thin films
• Photon Drag Effect in (Bi${}_{1-x}$Sb${}_x$)${}_2$Te${}_3$ Three Dimensional Topological Insulators
• Band resolved imaging of photocurrent in a topological insulator
• Electron-Phonon Coupling and Surface Debye Temperature of Bi${}_2$Te${}_3$(111) from Helium Atom Scattering
• Electrical resistance of individual defects at a topological insulator surface
• Tuning the Dirac point to the Fermi level in the ternary topological insulator (Bi${}_{1-x}$Sb${}_x$)${}_2$Te${}_3$
• Origin of the Electron-Phonon Interaction of Topological Semimetal Surfaces Measured with Helium Atom Scattering
• Weak Localization and Antilocalization in Topological Materials with Impurity Spin-Orbit Interactions
• Nanoscale Surface Dynamics of Bi${}_2$Te${}_3$(111): Observation of a Prominent Surface Acoustic Wave and the Role of van der Waals Interactions
• Quantum electronic transport of topological surface states in beta-Ag2Se nanowire
• Opto-Electronic Characterization of Three Dimensional Topological Insulators
• Optical manipulation of Rashba-split 2-Dimensional Electron Gas
• Observation of Planar Hall Effect in Topological Insulator -- Bi${}_2$Te${}_3$
• Accessing the spectral function of in operando devices by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy
• Strongly anisotropic spin-orbit splitting in a two-dimensional electron gas
• Non-magnetic ground state of Ni adatoms on Te-terminated bismuth chalcogenide topological insulators
• Anomalous Hall Coulomb drag of massive Dirac fermions
• Ambipolar surface state transport in non-metallic stoichiometric Bi${}_2$Se${}_3$ crystals
• Exchange-Driven Intermixing of Bulk and Topological Surface State by Chiral Excitons in Bi2Se3
• Coulomb drag in topological insulator films
• Parasitic conduction channels in topological insulator thin films
• Coulomb drag in topological materials
• Bulk band structure of Sb${}_2$Te${}_3$ determined by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy
• Observation of Dirac Charge Density Waves in Bi${}_2$Te${}_2$Se
• High-field charge transport on the surface of Bi${}_2$Se${}_3$
• Band structure of Bi surfaces formed on Bi2Se3 upon exposure to air
• Electric Currents at Semiconductor Surfaces from the Perspective of Drift-Diffusion Equations
• The orbital-driven topological phase transition and planar Hall responses in ternary tellurides Weyl semi-metals