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.

20 pages, 5 figures

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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