Surface band bending on cleaved strongly correlated topological insulators

ORAL

Abstract

Strongly correlated topological surface states are promising platforms for next-generation quantum applications, but they remain elusive in real materials. Although angle-resolved photoemission (ARPES) experiments on the correlated insulator SmB6 appear to show spin-textured surface states, the Dirac point – the hallmark of any topological system – has not been resolved by ARPES. A key challenge is that SmB6 lacks a natural cleaving plane, thus limiting the ordered surface domains to tens of nanometers, with local energy band features shifted by tens of meV as observed by our scanning tunneling microscopy experiments. Here we simulate the full spectral function as an average over multiple domains with different surface potentials and band-bending. We thus explain the discrepancy between large-area measurements that average over multiple band-shifted domains and atomically-resolved measurements.

*Experiments were supported by National Science Foundation DMR-1410480. HP and MHH were funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s EPiQS Initiative through Grant GBMF4536. CEM is supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation under fellowships P2EZP2_175155

–

Presenters

  • Christian Matt

    • Department of Physics, Harvard University
    • Physics Department, Harvard University
    • Physics, Harvard University
    • Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States

Authors

  • Christian Matt

    • Department of Physics, Harvard University
    • Physics Department, Harvard University
    • Physics, Harvard University
    • Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States

  • Harris Pirie

    • Harvard University
    • Physics, Harvard University
    • Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States
    • Department of Physics, Harvard University

  • Wendel S. Paz

    • Departamento de Fisica de la Materia Condensada, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

  • Juan Jose Palacios

    • Departamento de Fisica de la Materia Condensada, Cantoblanco, 28049 Madrid, Spain, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid,
    • Departamento de Fisica de la Materia Condensada, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

  • Daniel Larson

    • Harvard University
    • Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States

  • Mohammad H Hamidian

    • Department of Physics, Harvard University
    • Harvard University
    • Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States

  • Jennifer Hoffman

    • Physics, Harvard University
    • Department of Physics, Harvard University
    • Harvard University
    • Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States