Electrically tunable surface-to-bulk coherent coupling in topological insulator thin films

TL;DR

This study investigates how electric fields influence the coherent coupling between surface and bulk states in topological insulator thin films, revealing tunable channel separation affecting transport properties.

Contribution

It demonstrates electric field control over surface-to-bulk coherent coupling in topological insulator thin films, introducing a model based on coherence and scattering times.

Findings

Electric field modulates resistance with 500% on/off ratio.

Coherent channels can be separated by gate voltage and temperature.

Channel separation depends on coherence and scattering times.

Abstract

We study coherent transport in density tunable micro-devices patterned from thin films of the topological insulator (TI) Bi2Se3. The devices exhibit pronounced electric field effect, including ambipolar modulation of the resistance with an on/off ratio of 500%. We show that the weak antilocalization (WAL) correction to conductance is sensitive to the number of coherently coupled channels, which in a TI includes the top and bottom surface and the bulk carriers. These are separated into coherently independent channels by the application of gate voltage and at elevated temperatures. Our results are consistent with a model where channel separation is determined by a competition between the coherence time and surface-bulk scattering time.