Ultrafast helicity control of surface currents in topological insulators with near-unity fidelity

Abstract

In recent years, a class of solid state materials, called three-dimensional topological insulators, has emerged. In the bulk, a topological insulator behaves like an ordinary insulator with a band gap. At the surface, conducting gapless states exist showing remarkable properties such as helical Dirac dispersion and suppression of backscattering of spin-polarized charge carriers. The characterization and control of the surface states via transport experiments is often hindered by residual bulk contributions yet at cryogenic temperatures. Here, we show that surface currents in Bi2Se3 can be controlled by circularly polarized light on a picosecond time scale with a fidelity near unity even at room temperature. We re-veal the temporal separation of such ultrafast helicity-dependent surface currents from photo-induced thermoelectric and drift currents in the bulk. Our results uncover the functionality of ultrafast optoelectronic devices based on surface currents in topological insulators.

19 pages, 4 figures, supplementary information

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Cited by in corpus (61)

• Colloquium: Topological Band Theory
• Nonthermal pathways to ultrafast control in quantum materials
• Ultrafast photocurrents at the surface of the three-dimensional topological insulator ${\mathrm{Bi}}_2{\mathrm{Se}}_3$
• Chiral photocurrent in parity-violating magnet and enhanced response in topological antiferromagnet
• Enhanced photogalvanic current in topological insulators via Fermi energy tuning
• Tracking ultrafast photocurrents in the Weyl semimetal TaAs using THz emission spectroscopy
• Two-Dimensional Photogalvanic Spin-Battery
• Photon Drag Effect in (Bi${}_{1-x}$Sb${}_x$)${}_2$Te${}_3$ Three Dimensional Topological Insulators
• Helicity dependent photocurrent in electrically gated (Bi,Sb)_2Te_3 thin films
• Superradiant phase transition in electronic systems and emergent topological phases
• Band resolved imaging of photocurrent in a topological insulator
• Shift charge and spin photocurrents in Dirac surface states of topological insulator
• Unraveling photoinduced spin dynamics in topological insulator Bi2Se3
• Generation of Transient Photocurrents in the Topological Surface State of Sb${}_2$Te${}_3$ by Direct Optical Excitation with Mid-Infrared Pulses
• Sub-picosecond spin dynamics of excited states in the topological insulator Bi${}_2$Te${}_3$
• Spin Hall photoconductance in a 3D topological insulator at room temperature
• Dissipation and geometry in nonlinear quantum transports of multiband electronic systems
• Infrared/Terahertz Spectra of the Photogalvanic Effect in (Bi,Sb)Te based Three Dimensional Topological Insulators
• Ultrafast photodetection in the quantum wells of single AlGaAs/GaAs-based nanowires
• Ultrafast Energy- and Momentum-resolved Surface Dirac Photocurrents in the Topological Insulator Sb${}_2$Te${}_3$
• Revealing the ultrafast light-to-matter energy conversion before heat diffusion in a layered Dirac semimetal
• Weak Localization and Antilocalization in Topological Materials with Impurity Spin-Orbit Interactions
• Opto-Electronic Characterization of Three Dimensional Topological Insulators
• Terahertz electric field driven electric currents and ratchet effects in graphene
• Helicity dependent photovoltaic effect in Bi2Se3 under normal incident light
• On-chip time-domain terahertz spectroscopy of superconducting films below the diffraction limit
• Spin-momentum locked interaction between guided photons and surface electrons in topological insulators
• Photoexcitation of electron wave packets in quantum spin Hall edge states: effects of chiral anomaly from a localised electric pulse
• Optically driven collective spin excitations and magnetization dynamics in the Néel-type skyrmion host GaV${}_4$S${}_8$
• Circular photogalvanic effect in Cu/Bi bilayers
• Coherent ultrafast spin-dynamics probed in three dimensional topological insulators
• Photocurrent response in parity-time symmetric current-ordered states
• Highly superlinear photogalvanic effects in (Bi${}_{0.3}$Sb${}_{0.7}$)${}_2$(Te${}_{0.1}$Se${}_{0.9}$)${}_3$: Probing 3D topological insulator surface states at room temperature
• Synchrotron radiation induced magnetization in magnetically-doped and pristine topological insulators
• On-chip terahertz modulation and emission with integrated graphene junctions
• Chemical Potential Fluctuations in Topological Insulator (Bi${}_{0.5}$Sb${}_{0.5}$)${}_2$Te${}_3$ Films Visualized by Photocurrent Spectroscopy
• Impact of ultrafast transport on the high-energy states of a photoexcited topological insulator
• On-chip coherent frequency-domain THz spectroscopy for electrical transport
• Interplay between Rashba interaction and electromagnetic field in the edge states of a 2D topological insulator
• Anomalous Hall Coulomb drag of massive Dirac fermions
• Ultra-Efficient Resistance Switching between Charge Ordered Phases in 1T-TaS${}_2$ with a Single Picosecond Electrical Pulse
• A cascading nonlinear magneto-optical effect in topological insulators
• Switchable quantized conductance in topological insulators revealed by the Shockley-Ramo theorem
• Ultrafast dynamics of photocurrents in surface states of 3D topological insulators
• Ballistic and resonant negative photocurrents in semiconducting carbon nanotubes
• Exchange-Driven Intermixing of Bulk and Topological Surface State by Chiral Excitons in Bi2Se3
• Terahertz radiation by subpicosecond spin-polarized photocurrent originating from Dirac electrons in a Rashba-type polar semiconductor
• Photocurrent measurements in topological insulator ${\text{Bi}}_2{\text{Se}}_3$ nanowires
• Photoexcitation in two-dimensional topological insulators: Generating and controlling electron wavepackets in Quantum Spin Hall systems
• Coulomb drag in topological insulator films
• The impact of metallic contacts on spin-polarized photocurrents in topological insulator ${\text{Bi}}_2{\text{Se}}_3$ nanowires
• Coulomb drag in topological materials
• Nanosecond dynamics in intrinsic topological insulator ${\text{Bi}}_{2-x}{\text{Sb}}_x{\text{Se}}_3$ revealed by time-resolved optical reflectivity
• Reversible Engineering of Topological Insulator Surface State Conductivity through Optical Excitation
• Band Structure and Polarization Effects in Photothermoelectric Spectroscopy of a Bi2Se3 Device
• Topological Insulator Metamaterial with Giant Circular Photogalvanic Effect
• Visualization of optical polarization transfer to photoelectron spin vector emitted from the spin-orbit coupled surface state
• Towards femtosecond on-chip electronics
• Dirac plasmon polaritons and magnetic modes in topological-insulator nanoparticles
• Terahertz electro-optic effect in Bi${}_2$Se${}_3$ crystals
• Water jet space charge spectroscopy: Route to direct measurement of electron dynamics for organic systems in their natural environment