Observation of topological surface state quantum Hall effect in an intrinsic three-dimensional topological insulator

Abstract

A three-dimensional (3D) topological insulator (TI) is a quantum state of matter with a gapped insulating bulk yet a conducting surface hosting topologically-protected gapless surface states. One of the most distinct electronic transport signatures predicted for such topological surface states (TSS) is a well-defined half-integer quantum Hall effect (QHE) in a magnetic field, where the surface Hall conductivities become quantized in units of (1/2)e2/h (e being the electron charge, h the Planck constant) concomitant with vanishing resistance. Here, we observe well-developed QHE arising from TSS in an intrinsic TI of BiSbTeSe2. Our samples exhibit surface dominated conduction even close to room temperature, while the bulk conduction is negligible. At low temperatures and high magnetic fields perpendicular to the top and bottom surfaces, we observe well-developed integer quantized Hall plateaus, where the two parallel surfaces each contributing a half integer e2/h quantized Hall (QH) conductance, accompanied by vanishing longitudinal resistance. When the bottom surface is gated to match the top surface in carrier density, only odd integer QH plateaus are observed, representing a half-integer QHE of two degenerate Dirac gases. This system provides an excellent platform to pursue a plethora of exotic physics and novel device applications predicted for TIs, ranging from magnetic monopoles and Majorana particles to dissipationless electronics and fault-tolerant quantum computers.

23 pages, 14 figures, accepted by Nature Physics

References in corpus (12)

• Topological Insulators with Inversion Symmetry
• Topological Field Theory of Time-Reversal Invariant Insulators
• Quantized Anomalous Hall Effect in Magnetic Topological Insulators
• Quantum Anomalous Hall Effect in Hg${}_{1-y}$Mn${}_y$Te Quantum Wells
• Topological origin of subgap conductance in insulating bilayer graphene
• Two-dimensional Dirac fermions in a topological insulator: transport in the quantum limit
• Bulk Fermi surface coexistence with Dirac surface state in Bi${}_2$Se${}_3$: a comparison of photoemission and Shubnikov-de Haas measurements
• Bulk Band Gap and Surface State Conduction Observed in Voltage-Tuned Crystals of the Topological Insulator Bi${}_2$Se${}_3$
• Observation of Dirac Holes and Electrons in a Topological Insulator
• Single valley Dirac fermions in zero-gap HgTe quantum wells
• Topological Surface States and Dirac point tuning in ternary Bi2Te2Se class of topological insulators
• Structural and electronic properties of highly doped topological insulator Bi2Se3 crystals

Cited by in corpus (69)

• Topological quantum materials from the viewpoint of chemistry
• Observation of the quantum Hall effect in confined films of the three-dimensional Dirac semimetal Cd3As2
• Quantum Transport in Topological Semimetals under Magnetic Fields
• Nonlinear planar Hall effect
• Probing topological quantum matter with scanning tunnelling microscopy
• Topological Semimetal Nanostructures: From Properties to Topotronics
• Enhanced electron dephasing in three-dimensional topological insulators
• Chiral Spin Mode on the Surface of a Topological Insulator
• Any Axion Insulator Must be a Bulk Three-Dimensional Topological Insulator
• Smart patterning for topological pumping of elastic surface waves
• Bulk-Free Topological Insulator Bi2Se3 nanoribbons with Magnetotransport Signatures of Dirac Surface States
• Half-Quantized Hall Effect at the Parity-Invariant Fermi Surface
• Charge and spin transport in edge channels of a $\nu =0$ quantum Hall system on the surface of topological insulators
• Quantized and half-quantized Anomalous Hall effect induced by in-plane magnetic field
• Topological insulators based on HgTe
• Band Structure of Topological Insulator BiSbTe1.25Se1.75
• Understanding the three-dimensional quantum Hall effect in generic multi-Weyl semimetals
• Half-Quantized Helical Hinge Currents in Axion Insulators
• Altermagnetism-Induced Parity Anomaly in Weak Topological Insulators
• Quantum-Hall to Insulator Transition in Ultra-low-carrier-density Topological Insulator Films and a Hidden Phase of the Zeroth Landau Level
• Interaction between counter-propagating quantum Hall edge channels in the 3D topological insulator BiSbTeSe${}_2$
• Phase transition and anomalous scaling in the quantum Hall transport of topological insulator Sn-Bi1.1Sb0.9Te2S devices
• Zeeman field-induced two-dimensional Weyl semimetal phase in cadmium arsenide
• Electron spin dynamics of two-dimensional layered materials
• Strong Photothermoelectric Response and Contact Reactivity of the Dirac Semimetal ZrTe5
• Conductance fluctuations and disorder induced $\nu =0$ quantum Hall plateau in topological insulator nanowires
• Kerr, Faraday, and Magnetoelectric Effects in MnBi${}_2$Te${}_4$ Thin Films
• Structurally and Chemically Compatible BiInSe3 Substrate for Topological Insulator Thin Films
• Coupling-decoupling of conducting topological surface states in thick Bi${}_2$Se${}_3$ single crystals
• Topological transport in Dirac electronic systems: A concise review
• Signature of Parity Anomaly: Crossover from One Half to Integer Quantized Hall Conductance in a Finite Magnetic Field
• Metal-insulator transition and tunable Dirac-cone surface state in the topological insulator TlBi1-xSbxTe2 studied by angle-resolved photoemission
• Quarter-quantized thermal Hall effect with parity anomaly
• Gate-tunable anomalous Hall effect in a 3D topological insulator/2D magnet van der Waals heterostructure
• Manipulation of Weyl Points in Reciprocal and Nonreciprocal Mechanical Lattices
• Conduction spectroscopy of a proximity induced superconducting topological insulator
• Two Types of 3D Quantum Hall Effects in Multilayer WTe${}_2$
• Anatomy of Spin and Current Generation from Magnetization Gradients in Topological Insulators and Rashba Metals
• Versatile Large-Area Custom-Feature van der Waals Epitaxy of Topological Insulators
• Weak antilocalization in the transition metal telluride Ta${}_2$Pd${}_3$Te${}_5$
• Large-Scale Epitaxial Integration of Single-Crystalline BiSb Topological Insulator on GaAs (111)A
• Chiral edge mode for single-cone Dirac fermions
• Dissipation and dephasing in quantum Hall interferometers
• Electrified magnetic catalysis in three-dimensional topological insulators
• From classical to quantum regime of topological surface states via defect engineering
• Uncover band topology via quantized drift in two-dimensional Bloch oscillations
• Emergence of Floquet edge states in the coupled Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model
• Universal Conductance Fluctuations of Topological Insulators
• Topologically protected quantization of work
• Antiferromagnetic topological insulating state in Tb${}_{0.02}$Bi${}_{1.08}$Sb${}_{0.9}$Te${}_2$S single crystals
• Realization of a three-dimensional quantum Hall effect in a Zeeman-induced second order topological insulator on a torus
• Magnon-mediated superconductivity on ferromagnetic wallpaper fermions
• Influence of disorder on antidot vortex Majorana states in 3D topological insulators
• Unconventional quantum Hall effect in Floquet topological insulators
• Spin-orbit torque: Moving towards two-dimensional van der Waals heterostructures
• Quantum matter and gravitation: photons in a waveguide
• Edge and bulk states in Weyl-orbit quantum Hall effect as studied by Corbino measurements
• Strained topological insulator spin-orbit torque random access memory (STI-SOTRAM) bit cell for energy-efficient Processing in Memory
• Designing atomic-scale resistive circuits in topological insulators through vacancy-induced localized modes
• Boundary-condition-assisted chiral-symmetry protection of the zeroth Landau level on a two-dimensional lattice
• Transport spectroscopy for Paschen-Back splitting of Landau levels in InAs nanowires
• Conductance Oscillations in a Topological Insulator-Disordered Superconductor Hybrid Interface
• Nonlocal Correlation Mediated by Weyl Orbits
• Symmetry-protected topological corner modes in a periodically driven interacting spin lattice
• Influence of Device Geometry on Transport Properties of Topological Insulator Microflakes
• Interplay of Kekulé distortions and laser fields in graphene
• Large Enhancement of Electronic Thermal Conductivity and Lorenz Number in Topological Insulator Bi2Te2Se Thin Films
• Merging of Dirac points through uniaxial modulation on an optical lattice
• Gate-tunable anomalous Hall effect in stacked van der Waals ferromagnetic insulator - topological insulator heterostructures