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Abstract:

In the past few years, a new state of quantum matter known as the time-reversal-invariant topological insulator has been predicted theoretically and realized experimentally. All of the topological insulators discovered so far in experiment are inversion symmetric - except for strained HgTe, which has weak inversion asymmetry, a small bulk gap but no bulk charge polarization. Strong inversion asymmetry in topological insulators would not only lead to many interesting phenomena, such as crystalline-surface-dependent topological electronic states, pyroelectricity and intrinsic topological p-n junctions, but would also serve as an ideal platform for the realization of topological magneto-electric effects, which result from the modification of Maxwell equations in topological insulators. Here we report the discovery of a strong inversion asymmetric topological insulator phase in BiTeCl by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, which reveals Dirac surface states and crystalline-surface-dependent electronic structures. Moreover, we observe a tenfold increase of the bulk energy gap in BiTeCl over the weak inversion asymmetric topological insulator HgTe, making it a promising platform for topological phenomena and possible applications at high temperature. © 2013 Macmillan Publishers Limited.

Abstract:

Topological insulators represent a new state of quantum matter recently discovered with insulating bulk but conducting surface states formed by an odd number of Dirac fermions. In this Letter, we report our recent progress on the study of electronic structures of ex-situ grown topological insulator thin films by angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES). We successfully obtained the topological band structures of molecular beam epitaxial HgTe and vapor-solid grown Bi2Te3 thin films after proper surface cleaning procedures. This new development will not only enable us to study more topological insulators that cannot be measured by conventional in-situ ARPES technique (e.g. by cleaving or growing samples in-situ), but also open the door to directly characterize the electronic properties of topological insulators used in functional devices. © 2013 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.