Topological states and phase transitions in Sb2Te3-GeTe multilayers

Topological insulators (TIs) are bulk insulators with exotic ‘topologically protected’ surface conducting modes. It has recently been pointed out that when stacked together, interactions between surface modes can induce diverse phases including the TI, Dirac semimetal, and Weyl semimetal. However, c...

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Veröffentlicht in:Scientific reports Jg. 6; H. 1; S. 27716
Hauptverfasser: Nguyen, Thuy-Anh, Backes, Dirk, Singh, Angadjit, Mansell, Rhodri, Barnes, Crispin, Ritchie, David A., Mussler, Gregor, Lanius, Martin, Grützmacher, Detlev, Narayan, Vijay
Format: Journal Article
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: London Nature Publishing Group UK 13.06.2016
Nature Publishing Group
Schlagworte:
142/126
639/766/119/2792
639/766/119/2795
Electrons
Humanities and Social Sciences
Molecular beam epitaxy
multidisciplinary
Phase transitions
Science
ISSN:2045-2322, 2045-2322
Online-Zugang:Volltext
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Zusammenfassung:Topological insulators (TIs) are bulk insulators with exotic ‘topologically protected’ surface conducting modes. It has recently been pointed out that when stacked together, interactions between surface modes can induce diverse phases including the TI, Dirac semimetal, and Weyl semimetal. However, currently a full experimental understanding of the conditions under which topological modes interact is lacking. Here, working with multilayers of the TI Sb 2 Te 3 and the band insulator GeTe, we provide experimental evidence of multiple topological modes in a single Sb 2 Te 3 -GeTe-Sb 2 Te 3 structure. Furthermore, we show that reducing the thickness of the GeTe layer induces a phase transition from a Dirac-like phase to a gapped phase. By comparing different multilayer structures we demonstrate that this transition occurs due to the hybridisation of states associated with different TI films. Our results demonstrate that the Sb 2 Te 3 -GeTe system offers strong potential towards manipulating topological states as well as towards controlledly inducing various topological phases.
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ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/srep27716