Photoemission induced gating of topological insulator

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that photon energy can be used to control the surface state occupancy in topological insulators, revealing a photoemission induced gating effect that offers new ways to explore and utilize topological surface states.

Contribution

It introduces a novel photoemission induced gating method to tune surface states in topological insulators, highlighting intercalation as a promising approach for electronic device applications.

Findings

Surface state occupancy can be tuned by photon energy.

Photoemission induces a gating effect in topological insulators.

Intercalation facilitates the synthesis of materials for electronics.

Abstract

The recently discovered topological insulators exhibit topologically protected metallic surface states which are interesting from the fundamental point of view and could be useful for various applications if an appropriate electronic gating can be realized. Our photoemission study of Cu intercalated Bi2Se3 shows that the surface states occupancy in this material can be tuned by changing the photon energy and understood as a photoemission induced gating effect. Our finding provides an effective tool to investigate the new physics coming from the topological surface states and suggests the intercalation as a recipe for synthesis of the material suitable for electronic applications.