Comparative Scanning Tunneling Microscopy Study on Hexaborides

Abstract

We compare STM investigations on two hexaboride compounds, SmB${}_6$ and EuB${}_6$, in an effort to provide a comprehensive picture of their surface structural properties. The latter is of particular importance for studying the nature of the surface states in SmB${}_6$ by surface-sensitive tools. Beyond the often encountered atomically rough surface topographies of {\it in situ}, low-temperature cleaved samples, differently reconstructed as well as B-terminated and, more rarely, rare-earth terminated areas could be found. With all the different surface topographies observed on both hexaborides, a reliable assignment of the surface terminations can be brought forward.

arXiv comment8 pages, 10 figures

References in corpus (33)

• Topological Kondo Insulators
• Magnetic impurities on the surface of a topological insulator
• Low-temperature surface conduction in the Kondo insulator SmB${}_6$
• Correlated Topological Insulators with Mixed Valence
• Topological surface state in the Kondo Insulator Samarium Hexaboride
• Direct observation of the spin texture in strongly correlated SmB6 as evidence of the topological Kondo insulator
• Surface and Bulk Electronic Structure of the Strongly Correlated System SmB${}_6$ and Implications for a Topological Kondo Insulator
• Polarity-driven surface metallicity in SmB${}_6$
• Hybridization gap and Fano resonance in SmB${}_6$
• Emergence of a coherent in-gap state in SmB6 Kondo insulator revealed by scanning tunneling spectroscopy
• Momentum-Dependent Hybridization Gap and dispersive in-gap state of The Kondo Semiconductor SmB6
• Samarium hexaboride: A trivial surface conductor
• The fate of topological-insulator surface states under strong disorder
• Additional energy scale in SmB${}_6$ at low temperature
• Imaging emergent heavy Dirac fermions of a topological Kondo insulator
• Termination-dependent Surface In-gap States in a Mixed-valent Topological Insulator: SmB${}_6$
• Quantum oscillations in flux-grown SmB6 with embedded aluminum
• Robustness of the Insulating Bulk in the Topological Kondo Insulator SmB${}_6$
• 4$f$ crystal field ground state of the strongly correlated topological insulator SmB${}_6$
• Hysteretic Magnetotransport in SmB6 at Low Magnetic Fields
• Magnetotransport Measurements of the Surface States of Samarium Hexaboride using Corbino Structures
• Magnetic and defect probes of the SmB${}_6$ surface state
• Surface-state spin textures and mirror Chern numbers in topological Kondo insulators
• Band symmetries of mixed-valence topological insulator: SmB6
• Electronic structure near an impurity and terrace on the surface of a 3-dimensional topological insulator
• Bulk and surface electronic properties of SmB6: a hard x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy study
• Spin-polarized angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy of the so-predicted Kondo topological insulator SmB6
• Distinct topological crystalline phases in models for the strongly correlated topological insulator SmB6
• Surface and electronic structure of SmB${}_6$ through Scanning Tunneling Microscopy
• Observation of a well-defined hybridization gap and in-gap states on the SmB6 (001) surface
• Comparative study of rare earth hexaborides using high resolution angle-resolved photoemission
• Surface resonance of the (2$\times$1) reconstructed lanthanum hexaboride (001)-cleavage plane: a combined STM and DFT study
• Universal properties of the near-gap spectra of SmB6: dynamical mean-field calculations and photoemission experiments

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Time-reversal symmetry breaking driven topological phase transition in EuB${}_6$
• An STM perspective on hexaborides: Surface states of the Kondo insulator SmB${}_6$
• Phase stability in SmB${}_6$