Photo-Seebeck effect in single-crystalline bismuth telluride topological insulator

Abstract

Bismuth telluride is a low energy bulk band-gap topological system with conducting surface states. Besides its very good thermoelectric properties, it also makes a very good candidate for broadband photodetectors. Here, we report temperature-dependent photo-Seebeck effect in a bulk single crystalline bismuth telluride. On light illumination, an electrically biased sample shows distinguishable contributions in the measured current due to both the Seebeck effect and the normal photo-generated carriers within a narrow layer of the sample. Detailed experiments are performed to elucidate the distinction between the Seebeck contribution and the photogenerated current. The temperature-dependence of the photocurrent without Seebeck contribution shows a sign reversal from negative to positive at a specific temperature depending on the wavelength of photoexcitation light.