Electrically tunable in-plane anisotropic magnetoresistance in topological insulator BiSbTeSe2 nanodevices.

We report tunable in-plane anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR) in nanodevices based on topological insulator BiSbTeSe2 (BSTS) nanoflakes by electric gating. The AMR can be changed continuously from negative to positive when the Fermi level is manipulated to cross the Dirac point by an applied gate electric field. We also discuss effects of the gate electric field, current density, and magnetic field on the in-plane AMR with a simple physical model, which is based on the in-plane magnetic field induced shift of the spin-momentum locked topological two surface states that are coupled through side surfaces and bulk weak antilocalization (WAL). The large, tunable and bipolar in-plane AMR in BSTS devices provides the possibility of fabricating more sensitive logic and magnetic random access memory AMR devices.

Gate-tuned quantum oscillations of topological surface states in ß-Ag2Te.

We report the strong experimental evidence of the existence of topological surface states with large electric field tunability and mobility in ß-Ag2Te. Pronounced 2D Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations have been observed in ß-Ag2Te nanoplates. A Berry phase is determined to be near π using the Landau level fan diagram for a relatively wide nanoplate while the largest electric field ambipolar effect in topological insulator so far (~2500%) is observed in a narrow nanoplate. The π Berry phase and the evolution of quantum oscillations with gate voltage (Vg) in the nanoplates strongly indicate the presence of topological surface states in ß-Ag2Te. Moreover, the mobility of the narrow Ag2Te nanoplate is about several thousand cm(2)s(-1)V(-1). Our results suggest that ß-Ag2Te has the potential to become an important material in the investigation of topological insulators.

Ultraviolet and visible range plasmonics in the topological insulator Bi1.5Sb0.5Te1.8Se1.2.

The development of metamaterials, data processing circuits and sensors for the visible and ultraviolet parts of the spectrum is hampered by the lack of low-loss media supporting plasmonic excitations. This has driven the intense search for plasmonic materials beyond noble metals. Here we show that the semiconductor Bi1.5Sb0.5Te1.8Se1.2, also known as a topological insulator, is also a good plasmonic material in the blue-ultraviolet range, in addition to the already-investigated terahertz frequency range. Metamaterials fabricated from Bi1.5Sb0.5Te1.8Se1.2 show plasmonic resonances from 350 to 550 nm, while surface gratings exhibit cathodoluminescent peaks from 230 to 1,050 nm. The observed plasmonic response is attributed to the combination of bulk charge carriers from interband transitions and surface charge carriers of the topological insulator. The importance of our result is in the identification of new mechanisms of negative permittivity in semiconductors where visible range plasmonics can be directly integrated with electronics.