In-surface confinement of topological insulator nanowire surface states

Abstract

The bandstructures of [110] and [001] Bi2Te3 nanowires are solved with the atomistic 20 band tight binding functionality of NEMO5. The theoretical results reveal: The popular assumption that all topological insulator wire surfaces are equivalent is inappropriate. The Fermi velocity of chemically distinct wire surfaces differs significantly which creates an effective in-surface confinement potential. As a result, topological insulator surface states prefer specific surfaces. Therefore, experiments have to be designed carefully not to probe surfaces unfavorable to the surface states (low density of states) and thereby be insensitive to the TI-effects.

2015 Applied Physics Letters

References in corpus (6)

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• Fermi velocity engineering in graphene by substrate modification
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• Transport in vertically stacked hetero-structures from 2D materials
• Perfect transmission and Aharanov-Bohm oscillations in topological insulator nanowires with nonuniform cross section