Exfoliation of single layer BiTeI flakes

Abstract

Spin orbit interaction can be strongly boosted when a heavy element is embedded into an inversion asymmetric crystal field. A simple structure to realize this concept in a 2D crystal contains three atomic layers, a middle one built up from heavy elements generating strong atomic spin-orbit interaction and two neighboring atomic layers with different electron negativity. BiTeI is a promising candidate for such a 2D crystal, since it contains heavy Bi layer between Te and I layers. Recently the bulk form of BiTeI attracted considerable attention due to its giant Rashba interaction, however, 2D form of this crystal was not yet created. In this work we report the first exfoliation of single layer BiTeI using a recently developed exfoliation technique on stripped gold. Our combined scanning probe studies and first principles calculations show that SL BiTeI flakes with sizes of 100 $\mu$m were achieved which are stable at ambient conditions. The giant Rashba splitting and spin-momentum locking of this new member of 2D crystals open the way towards novel spintronic applications and synthetic topological heterostructures.

arXiv comment20 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (28)

• Van der Waals heterostructures
• The interlayer cohesive energy of graphite from thermal desorption of polyaromatic hydrocarbons
• Ultra-strong Adhesion of Graphene Membranes
• Giant Spin-splitting in the Bi/Ag(111) Surface Alloy
• Strong spin-orbit splitting on Bi surfaces
• Anomalies in thickness measurements of graphene and few layer graphite crystals by tapping mode atomic force microscopy
• Emergence of non-centrosymmetric topological insulating phase in BiTeI under pressure
• Origin of giant bulk Rashba splitting: Application to BiTeI
• Ideal two-dimensional electron systems with a giant Rashba-type spin splitting in real materials: surfaces of bismuth tellurohalides
• Giant ambipolar Rashba effect in a semiconductor: BiTeI
• Strongly spin-orbit coupled two-dimensional electron gas emerging near the surface of polar semiconductors
• Surface and bulk Fermiology and band dispersion in non-centrosymmetric BiTeI
• New Family of Robust 2D Topological Insulators in van der Waals Heterostructures
• Graphene/Au(111) interaction studied by scanning tunneling microscopy
• Infrared and Raman spectroscopy measurements of a transition in the crystal structure and a closing of the energy gap of BiTeI under pressure
• Giant magneto-optical response in non-magnetic semiconductor BiTeI driven by bulk Rashba spin splitting
• Three-dimensional bulk band dispersion in polar BiTeI with giant Rashba-type spin splitting
• Pressure-induced topological phase transition in polar semiconductor BiTeBr
• First principles simulations of the magnetic and structural properties of Iron
• Temperature dependence of the bulk Rashba splitting in the bismuth tellurohalides
• Landau Level Spectroscopy of Dirac Electrons in a Polar Semiconductor with Giant Rashba Spin Splitting
• Magneto-transport in copper-doped noncentrosymmetric BiTeI
• Quantum spin Hall insulators in centrosymmetric thin films composed from topologically trivial BiTeI trilayers
• Enhanced quasiparticle dynamics of quantum well states: the giant Rashba system BiTeI and topological insulators
• Imaging ambipolar two-dimensional carriers induced by the spontaneous electric polarization of a polar semiconductor BiTeI
• Crystal growth and electronic properties of a 3D Rashba material, BiTeI, with adjusted carrier concentrations
• 2D and 3D topological phases in BiTe$X$ compounds
• Spin-helical Dirac states in graphene induced by polar-substrate surfaces with giant spin-orbit interaction: a new platform for spintronics

Cited by in corpus (13)

• Recent Progress of the Computational 2D Materials Database (C2DB)
• Emergent properties of van der Waals bilayers revealed by computational stacking
• Electrically Controlled Spin Injection from Giant Rashba Spin-Orbit Conductor BiTeBr
• In-plane Hall effect in two-dimensional helical electron systems
• Anisotropic properties of monolayer 2D materials: an overview from the C2DB database
• Uniaxial stress controlled anisotropic Rashba effects and carriers-based currents in BiTeI monolayer semiconductor
• Interlayer RKKY Coupling in Bulk Rashba Semiconductors under Topological Phase Transition
• Uniaxial Strain Induced Topological Phase Transition in Bismuth-Tellurohalide-Graphene Heterostructures
• In situ tuning of symmetry-breaking induced non-reciprocity in giant-Rashba semiconductor BiTeBr
• Bound electron pairs formed by the spin-orbit interaction in 2D gated structures
• Topological Phase Diagram of BiTeX--Graphene Hybrid Structures
• Current distribution in magnetically confined 2DEG: semiclassical and quantum mechanical treatment
• Limits of Validity of Rashba Model in BiTeI: A High-field Magneto-optical Study