Search

Successful applications of a topological insulator (TI) in spintronics require its bandgap to be wider then in a typical TI and the energy position of the Dirac point in the dispersion relations to be away from the valence and conduction bands. In this study we grew Bi1.1Sb0.9Te2S crystals and examined their elemental composition, structural, optical and electronic properties as well as the electronic band structure. The high structural quality of the grown crystals was established by X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy. Angular resolved photoelectron spectroscopy demonstrated a near parabolic character of the valence and conduction bands and a direct bandgap of 0.36 eV. The dispersion relations also revealed a Dirac cone, confirming the topological insulator nature of this material, with the position of the Dirac point being 100 meV above the valence band maximum. Far infrared reflectivity spectra revealed a plasma edge and two phonon dips. Fitting these spectra with theoretical functions based on the Drude-Lorentz model allows determination of the high frequency dielectric constant (41.3), plasma frequency (936 cm−1) and the frequencies of two infrared phonons (177.7 cm−1 and 77.4 cm−1). © 2021 Elsevier B.V. The reported study was funded by RFBR, project number 19-29-12061 . The part of optical research was carried out within the state assignment of Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation (theme "Spin" No AAAA-A18-118020290104-2 and No AAAA-A19-119081990020-8 and theme "Electron" No AAAAA18-118020190098-5 ). The study was also supported by the Russian Science Foundation (Project No. 17-12-01047 ) in the part of the crystal growth and state assignment of ISP SB RAS ( 0306–2019-0007 ) and IGM SB RAS. The Raman measurements were partially supported by the grant of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (Project No. 19-52-18008 ). This work is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) through project-ID 258499086 – SFB 1170 (A01), the Würzburg-Dresden Cluster of Excellence on Complexity and Topology in Quantum Matter–ct.qmat Project-ID 390858490 – EXC 2147 .

The electronic structure of the Sb 2 Te 3 (0 0 0 1) surface exhibits a spin–orbit split surface state in a local energy gap of the projected bulk valence band continuum. We investigate this surface state by high-resolution angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), spin-resolved ARPES and relativistic one-step photoemission calculations. At low wave vectors the dispersion and spin splitting are well-captured by the predictions of the Rashba model for a two-dimensional electron system. With increasing wave vectors, however, the surface state dispersion becomes more complex and the spin splitting size exhibits an unusual non-monotonic evolution. These deviations from the Rashba model arise from the influence of bulk continuum states near the edge of the projected gap. The spin polarization of the surface state remains intact despite the coupling to bulk states.