Anisotropic Fabry-P\'{e}rot resonant states confined within nano-steps on the topological insulator surface

TL;DR

This paper investigates how nano-steps on topological insulator surfaces can confine massless Dirac fermions, leading to anisotropic Fabry-Pérot-like resonances in the local density of states, influenced by warping effects.

Contribution

It introduces the study of anisotropic confinement and resonances of Dirac fermions on TI surfaces due to nano-steps, highlighting the effects of warping on LDOS and transmittance.

Findings

Resonance patterns are anisotropic depending on step orientation.

LDOS confinement exhibits Fabry-Pérot-like resonances.

Warping effects cause anisotropic transmittance and spin orientation.

Abstract

The peculiar nature of topological surface states, such as absence of backscattering, weak anti-localization, and quantum anomalous Hall effect, has been demonstrated mainly in bulk and film of topological insulator (TI), using surface sensitive probes and bulk transport probes. However, it is equally important and experimentally challenging to confine massless Dirac fermions with nano-steps on TI surfaces. This potential structure has similar ground with linearly-dispersed photons in Fabry-P\'{e}rot resonators, while reserving fundamental differences from well-studied Fabry-P\'{e}rot resonators and quantum corrals on noble metal surfaces. In this paper, we study the massless Dirac fermions confined within steps along the $x$ ($\Gamma\mathtt{-}$K) or $y$ ($\Gamma\mathtt{-}$M) direction on the TI surface, and the Fabry-P\'{e}rot-like resonances in the electronic local density of states (LDOS) between the steps are found. Due to the remarkable warping effect in the topological surface states, the LDOS confined in the step-well running along $\Gamma$-M direction exhibit anisotropic resonance patterns as compared to those in the step-well along $\Gamma$-K direction, which can be detected by scanning tunneling microscopy. The transmittance properties and spin orientation of Dirac fermion in both cases are also anisotropic in the presence of warping effect.