Year: 2009
Type: article
Abstract: We study how the surface states in the strong topological insulator ${\text{Bi}}_{2}{\text{Se}}_{3}$ are influenced by finite size effects and compare our results with those recently obtained for two-dimensional topological insulator HgTe. We demonstrate two important distinctions: (i) contrary to HgTe, the surface states in ${\text{Bi}}_{2}{\text{Se}}_{3}$ display a remarkable robustness towards decreasing the width $L$ down to a few nm thus ensuring that the topological surface states remain intact and (ii) the gapping due to the hybridization of the surface states features an oscillating exponential decay as a function of $L$ in ${\text{Bi}}_{2}{\text{Se}}_{3}$ in sharp contrast to HgTe. Our findings suggest that ${\text{Bi}}_{2}{\text{Se}}_{3}$ is suitable for nanoscale applications in quantum computing or spintronics. Also, we propose a way to experimentally detect both of the predicted effects.
Source: Physical Review B
Authors: Jacob Linder, Takehito Yokoyama, Asle Sudbø
Language: English
Subfield: Condensed Matter Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
Award: G2286976256
OpenAlex ID: W2089974808