A study of surface electron states in topological insulators (Bi1−xInx)2Se3 with the use of terahertz laser radiation

• Published in: 2016 41st International Conference on Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz waves (IRMMW-THz) pp. 1 - 2
• Main Authors: Galeeva, A. V., Egorova, S. G., Chernichkin, V. I., Tamm, M. E., Yashina, L. V., Rumyantsev, V. V., Morozov, S. V., Plank, H., Danilov, S. N., Ryabova, L. I., Khokhlov, D. R.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.09.2016
• Subjects: Free electron lasers; Magnetic fields; Photoluminescence; Power lasers; Solids; Surface emitting lasers
• ISSN: 2162-2035
• DOI: 10.1109/IRMMW-THz.2016.7758890

In this work, we show that the use of terahertz laser radiation combined with magnetic field provides an opportunity to detect high mobility surface electron states in (Bi 1-x In x ) 2 Se 3 solid solutions being either in topological insulator (TI) (x <; 0.05) or trivial semiconductor (TS) (χ > 0.06) phase. It is demonstrated that in TI Bi 2 Se 3 the photoelectromagnetic effect amplitude is defined by the number of incident radiation quanta, whereas for TS (Bi 0.88 In 0.12 ) 2 Se 3 it only depends on the power of a laser pulse irrespective of its wavelength. The possible reasons for such a different behavior may be related to the enhanced thermalization time of the non-equilibrium carriers due to strong damping of electron-electron interaction in TI.