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One-dimensional topological edge states of bismuth bilayers

Nature Physics volume 10, pages 664–669 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

The hallmark of a topologically insulating state of matter in two dimensions protected by time-reversal symmetry is the existence of chiral edge modes propagating along the perimeter of the sample. Among the first systems predicted to be a two-dimensional topological insulator are bilayers of bismuth. Here we report scanning tunnelling microscopy experiments on bulk Bi crystals that show that a subset of the predicted Bi-bilayers’ edge states are decoupled from the states of the substrate and provide direct spectroscopic evidence of their one-dimensional nature. Moreover, by visualizing the quantum interference of edge-mode quasi-particles in confined geometries, we demonstrate their remarkable coherent propagation along the edge with scattering properties consistent with strong suppression of backscattering as predicted for the propagating topological edge states.

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Figure 1: Edges of Bi-bilayer islands on a Bi-crystal surface.
Figure 2: Spectroscopic mapping near the edge.
Figure 3: Quasi-particle interference within the edge channel.
Figure 4: Model of the Bi-bilayer 1D edge states.
Figure 5: Size-quantization effect in Bi edges.

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  • 13 August 2014

    In the version of this Article originally published, the name of one of the authors contained a typographical error and should have read B. Andrei Bernevig. This error has now been corrected in all versions of the Article.

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Acknowledgements

The work at Princeton and the Princeton Nanoscale Microscopy Laboratory was supported by the ARO MURI program W911NF-12-1-0461, DARPA-SPWAR Meso program N6601-11-1-4110, NSF-DMR1104612, NSF CAREER DMR-095242, ONR- N00014-11-1-0635, and NSF-MRSEC NSF-DMR0819860 programs. S.N-P. acknowledges support from the European Community through a Marie Curie fellowship (IOF 302937). The authors would like to thank F. Freimuth for providing the results of ab initio calculations and J. Seo and X. Dai for insightful discussions.

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Author notes

  1. Ilya K. Drozdov and A. Alexandradinata: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Joseph Henry Laboratories & Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA

    Ilya K. Drozdov, A. Alexandradinata, Sangjun Jeon, Stevan Nadj-Perge, B. Andrei Bernevig & Ali Yazdani

  2. Department of Chemistry, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA

    Huiwen Ji & R. J. Cava

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  1. Ilya K. Drozdov
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Contributions

I.K.D., S.J., S.N-P. and A.Y. designed and carried out the STM measurements and their analysis on samples synthesized by H.J. and R.J.C. A.A., I.K.D. and B.B. performed model calculations and related analysis. All authors contributed to the writing of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Ali Yazdani.

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Drozdov, I., Alexandradinata, A., Jeon, S. et al. One-dimensional topological edge states of bismuth bilayers. Nature Phys 10, 664–669 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys3048

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