Electronic Transport in Bismuth Selenide in the Topological Insulator Regime

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dc.contributor.advisorFuhrer, Michael Sen_US
dc.contributor.authorKim, Dohunen_US
dc.contributor.departmentPhysicsen_US
dc.contributor.publisherDigital Repository at the University of Marylanden_US
dc.contributor.publisherUniversity of Maryland (College Park, Md.)en_US
dc.date.accessioned2013-06-28T05:47:03Z
dc.date.available2013-06-28T05:47:03Z
dc.date.issued2013en_US
dc.description.abstractThe 3D topological insulators (TIs) have an insulating bulk but spin-momentum coupled metallic surface states stemming from band inversion due to strong spin-orbit interaction, whose existence is guaranteed by the topology of the band structure of the insulator. While the STI surface state has been studied spectroscopically by e.g. photoemission and scanned probes, transport experiments have failed to demonstrate clear signature of the STI due to high level of bulk conduction. In this thesis, I present experimental results on the transport properties of TI material Bi<sub>2</sub>Se<sub>3</sub> in the absence of bulk conduction (TI regime), achieved by applying novel p-type doping methods. Field effect transistors consisting of thin (thickness: 5-17 nm) Bi<sub>2</sub>Se<sub>3</sub> are fabricated by mechanical exfoliation of single crystals, and a combination of conventional dielectric (300 nm thick SiO<sub>2</sub>) and electrochemical or chemical gating methods are used to move the Fermi energy through the surface Dirac point inside bulk band gap, revealing the ambipolar gapless nature of transport in the Bi<sub>2</sub>Se<sub>3</sub> surface states. The minimum conductivity of the topological surface state is understood within the self-consistent theory of Dirac electrons in the presence of charged impurities. The intrinsic finite-temperature resistivity of the topological surface state due to electron-acoustic phonon scattering is measured to be 60 times larger than that of graphene largely due to the smaller Fermi and sound velocities in Bi<sub>2</sub>Se<sub>3</sub>, which will have implications for topological electronic devices operating at room temperature. Along with semi-classical Boltzmann transport, I also discuss 2D weak anti-localization (WAL) behavior of the topological surface states. By investigating gate-tuned WAL behavior in thin (5-17 nm) TI films, I show that WAL in the TI regime is extraordinarily sensitive to the hybridization induced quantum mechanical tunneling between top and bottom topological surfaces, and interplay of phase coherence time and inter-surface tunneling time results in a crossover from two decoupled (top and bottom) symplectic 2D metal surfaces to a coherently coupled single channel. Furthermore, a complete suppression of WAL is observed in the 5 nm thick Bi<sub>2</sub>Se<sub>3</sub> film which was found to occur when the hybridization gap becomes comparable to the disorder strength.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/13999
dc.subject.pqcontrolledCondensed matter physicsen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledNanoscienceen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledMaterials Scienceen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledAmbipolar Field Effecten_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledBismuth Selenideen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledCharged Impurity Scatteringen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledDirac Electronic Banden_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledTopological Insulatoren_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledWeak Antilocalizationen_US
dc.titleElectronic Transport in Bismuth Selenide in the Topological Insulator Regimeen_US
dc.typeDissertationen_US

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