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.

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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