Weak antilocalization in (111) thin films of a topological crystalline insulator SnTe

Abstract

We grew single-crystal thin films of a topological crystalline insulator (TCI) SnTe with a smooth surface at the atomic scale by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). In the magnetoresistance (MR) measurement, we observed both positive and negative components near zero magnetic field at lowest temperatures of 2 - 3 K, while we observed only a negative MR at elevated temperatures of 6 - 10 K. The positive MR is attributed to the weak antilocalization (WAL) in the transport through the topological surface state (SS), demonstrating $\pi$ berry phase which is essential to the topological SS, while the negative MR to the weak localization (WL) in the transport through the bulk state (two-dimensional bulk subbbands). The absolute value of the prefactor $\alpha$ deduced from the fitting of the observed positive MR to the Hikami-Larkin-Nagaoka equation was much smaller than expected from the number of transport channel of the SS, suggesting the coupling of the SS to the bulk state.

5 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (4)

• A topological Dirac insulator in a quantum spin Hall phase : Experimental observation of first strong topological insulator
• Topological Crystalline Insulators
• Impurity effect on weak anti-localization in the topological insulator Bi2Te3
• Topological delocalization of two-dimensional massless Dirac fermions

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Weak Localization and Antilocalization in Topological Materials with Impurity Spin-Orbit Interactions
• Indium substitution effect on the topological crystalline insulator family (Pb${}_{1-x}$Sn${}_x$)${}_{1-y}$In${}_y$Te: Topological and superconducting properties
• Quantum transport and mobility spectrum of topological carriers in (001) SnTe/PbTe heterojunctions