Landau Levels of Topologically-Protected Surface States Probed by Dual-Gated Quantum Capacitance

Abstract

Spectroscopy of discrete Landau levels (LLs) in bulk-insulating three-dimensional topological insulators (3D TIs) in perpendicular magnetic field characterizes the Dirac nature of their surface states. Despite a number of studies demonstrating the quantum Hall effect (QHE) of topological surface states, quantitative evaluation of the LL energies, which serve as fundamental electronic quantities for study of the quantum states, is still limited. In this work, we explore the density of states of LLs by measuring quantum capacitance (CQ) in a truly bulk insulating 3D TI via a van der Waals heterostructure configuration. By applying dual gate voltages, we access the individual surface states' LLs and extract their chemical potentials to quantify the LL spacings of each surface. We evaluate the LLs' energies at two distinguished QH states, namely dissipationless (ν= +/-1) and dissipative (ν= 0) states in the 3D TI.

23 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (14)

• Superconducting proximity effect and Majorana fermions at the surface of a topological insulator
• Topological origin of subgap conductance in insulating bilayer graphene
• Two-dimensional Dirac fermions in a topological insulator: transport in the quantum limit
• Observation of topological surface state quantum Hall effect in an intrinsic three-dimensional topological insulator
• Interaction phenomena in graphene seen through quantum capacitance
• Exciton condensation and charge fractionalization in a topological insulator film
• Density of states and zero Landau level probed through capacitance of graphene
• Topological Surface States and Dirac point tuning in ternary Bi2Te2Se class of topological insulators
• Quantum Hall Effect on Top and Bottom Surface States of Topological Insulator (Bi1-xSbx)2Te3 Films
• Local Compressibility Measurements of Correlated States in Suspended Bilayer Graphene
• Measurement of the electronic compressibility of bilayer graphene
• Electrostatic Coupling between Two Surfaces of a Topological Insulator Nanodevice
• Interaction between counter-propagating quantum Hall edge channels in the 3D topological insulator BiSbTeSe${}_2$
• Simultaneous electrical-field-effect modulation of both top and bottom Dirac surface states of epitaxial thin films of three-dimensional topological insulators

Cited by in corpus (3)

• 2D-Dirac surface states and bulk gap probed via quantum capacitance in a 3D topological insulator
• Method to preserve the chiral-symmetry protection of the zeroth Landau level on a two-dimensional lattice
• Influence of Device Geometry on Transport Properties of Topological Insulator Microflakes