Imaging two-component nature of Dirac-Landau levels in the topological surface state of Bi2Se3

Abstract

Massless Dirac electrons in condensed matter have attracted considerable attention. Unlike conventional electrons, Dirac electrons are described in the form of two-component wave functions. In the surface state of topological insulators, these two components are associated with the spin degrees of freedom, hence governing the magnetic properties. Therefore, the observation of the two-component wave function provides a useful clue for exploring the novel spin phenomena. Here we show that the two-component nature is manifested in the Landau levels (LLs) whose degeneracy is lifted by a Coulomb potential. Using spectroscopic-imaging scanning tunneling microscopy, we visualize energy and spatial structures of LLs in a topological insulator Bi2Se3. The observed potential-induced LL splitting and internal structures of Landau orbits are distinct from those in a conventional electron system and are well reproduced by a two-component model Dirac Hamiltonian. Our model further predicts non-trivial energy-dependent spin-magnetization textures in a potential variation. This provides a way to manipulate spins in the topological surface state.

Revised version to appear in Nature Physics. Supplementary information is available at http://www.riken.jp/epmrt/Hanaguri/SI/Bi2Se3_2comp/SI.html

References in corpus (5)

• The electronic properties of graphene
• Scanning Tunneling Spectroscopy of Graphene on Graphite
• Momentum-Resolved Landau-Level Spectroscopy of Dirac Surface State in Bi2Se3
• Nodal Spin Density Wave and band topology of the FeAs based materials
• The Quantum Hall Transition in Real Space: From Localized to Extended States

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• Probing the nodal structure of Landau level wave functions in real space
• Characterizing the chemical potential disorder in the topological insulator (Bi${}_{1-x}$Sb${}_x$)${}_2$Te${}_3$ thin films
• Revealing Pronounced Electron-Hole Fermi Pockets in the Charge Density Wave Semimetal LaTe3
• Unconventional quantum Hall effect in Floquet topological insulators
• Valley polarization of Landau levels driven by residual strain in the ZrSiS surface band
• Super-resonant transport of topological surface states subjected to in-plane magnetic fields
• Magnetic quantization in multilayer graphenes