Lifetime and surface-to-bulk scattering off vacancies of the topological surface state in the three-dimensional strong topological insulators Bi2Te3 and Bi2Se3

Abstract

We analyze the finite lifetimes of the topologically protected electrons in the surface state of Bi2Te3 and Bi2Se3 due to elastic scattering off surface vacancies and as a function of energy. The scattering rates are decomposed into surface-to-surface and surface-to-bulk contributions, giving us new fundamental insights into the scattering properties of the topological surface states (TSS). If the number of possible final bulk states is much larger than the number of final surface states, then the surface-to-bulk contribution is of importance, otherwise the surface-to-surface contribution dominates. Additionally, we find defect resonances that have a significant impact on the scattering properties of the TSS. They can strongly change the lifetime of the surface state to vary between tens of fs to ps at surface defect concentrations of 1 at%.

References in corpus (14)

• Ultrafast Optical Excitation of a Persistent Surface-State Population in the Topological Insulator Bi2Se3
• Observation of Dirac Holes and Electrons in a Topological Insulator
• Realization of a vertical topological p-n junction in epitaxial $\mathrm{S}{\mathrm{b}}_2\mathrm{T}{\mathrm{e}}_3/B{\mathrm{i}}_2\mathrm{T}{\mathrm{e}}_3$ heterostructures
• Signatures of Dirac fermion-mediated magnetic order
• Generation of Transient Photocurrents in the Topological Surface State of Sb${}_2$Te${}_3$ by Direct Optical Excitation with Mid-Infrared Pulses
• Momentum resolved spin dynamics of bulk and surface excited states in the topological insulator $\mathrm{B}{\mathrm{i}}_2\mathrm{S}{\mathrm{e}}_3$
• Experimental realization of a topological p-n junction by intrinsic defect-grading
• Anisotropic effect of warping on the lifetime broadening of topological surface states in angle-resolved photoemission from Bi${}_2$Te${}_3$
• Ultrafast Energy- and Momentum-resolved Surface Dirac Photocurrents in the Topological Insulator Sb${}_2$Te${}_3$
• Surface-to-bulk scattering in topological insulator films
• Enhanced transport length of spin-helical Dirac fermions in disordered 3D topological insulators
• Spin relaxation and spin Hall transport in 5d transition-metal ultrathin films
• Fermi surfaces, spin-mixing parameter, and colossal anisotropy of spin relaxation in transition metals from ab initio theory
• Probing Dirac Fermion Dynamics in Topological Insulator Bi${}_2$Se${}_3$ Films with Scanning Tunneling Microscope

Cited by in corpus (7)

• The AiiDA-KKR plugin and its application to high-throughput impurity embedding into a topological insulator
• Ab-initio Theory of Fourier-transformed Quasiparticle Interference Maps and Application to the Topological Insulator Bi${}_2$Te${}_3$
• Switchable quantized conductance in topological insulators revealed by the Shockley-Ramo theorem
• Transport properties of band engineered p-n heterostructures of epitaxial Bi${}_2$Se${}_3$/(Bi${}_{1-x}$Sb${}_x$)${}_2$(Te${}_{1-y}$Se${}_y$)${}_3$ topological insulators
• Ultrafast electron dynamics in a topological surface state observed in two-dimensional momentum space
• Evidence for nitrogen gas surface doping of the Bi${}_2$Se${}_3$ topological insulator
• Dirac plasmon polaritons and magnetic modes in topological-insulator nanoparticles