Connecting electron and phonon spectroscopy data to consistently determine quasiparticle-phonon coupling on the surface of topological insulators

Abstract

Photoemission and phonon spectroscopies have yielded widely varying estimates of the electron-phonon coupling constant λ on the surfaces of topological insulators, even for a particular material and technique. We connect the results of these experiments by determining the Dirac fermion quasiparticle spectral function using information from measured spectra of a strongly-interacting, low-lying optical surface phonon band. The manifest spectral features resulting from the coupling are found to vary on energy scales < 1 meV, and are distinct from those traditionally observed in the case of acoustic phonons in metals. We explore different means of determining λ from the electron perspective and identify definitions that yield values consistent with phonon spectroscopy.

5 pages, 2 figures, 1 table, v2 contains adjusted wording in first full paragraph of page 4 to improve clarity of argument

References in corpus (6)

• First Principles Studies on 3-Dimentional Strong Topological Insulators: Bi2Te3, Bi2Se3 and Sb2Te3
• Electron-phonon Coupling on the Surface of the Topological Insulator Bi2Se3: Determined from Surface Phonon Dispersion Measurements
• Electron-phonon scattering in topological insulators
• Anomalous dressing of Dirac fermions in the topological surface state of Bi2Se3, Bi2Te3, and CuxBi2Se3
• Many-body effects and possible superconductivity in the 2D metallic surface states of 3D topological insulators
• Anomalous behavior in the phonon dispersion of the (001) surface of Bi${}_2$Te${}_3$ determined from helium atom-surface scattering measurements

Cited by in corpus (11)

• Distinguishing bulk and surface electron-phonon coupling in the topological insulator Bi2Se3 using time-resolved photoemission spectroscopy
• Electron-Phonon Coupling and Surface Debye Temperature of Bi${}_2$Te${}_3$(111) from Helium Atom Scattering
• Optical phonon dynamics and electronic fluctuations in the Dirac semimetal Cd3As2
• Weakly Interacting Topological Insulators: Quantum Criticality and Renormalization Group Approach
• Nanoscale Surface Dynamics of Bi${}_2$Te${}_3$(111): Observation of a Prominent Surface Acoustic Wave and the Role of van der Waals Interactions
• A supervised learning algorithm for interacting topological insulators based on local curvature
• Femtosecond study of A1g phonons in the strong 3D topological insulators: From pump-probe to coherent control
• Nanoscale Determination of the Mass Enhancement Factor in the Lightly-Doped Bulk Insulator Lead Selenide
• Phase diagram and phonon-induced backscattering in topological insulator nanowires
• The anomalous spin texture as the probe for interactions in $B{i}_{2-y}S{b}_{y}S{e}_{x}T{e}_{3-x}$
• Non-orthogonal Spin-Momentum Locking