Dirac electron states formed at the heterointerface between a topological insulator and a conventional semiconductor.

ABSTRACT

Topological insulators are a class of semiconductor exhibiting charge-gapped insulating behaviour in the bulk, but hosting a spin-polarized massless Dirac electron state at the surface. The presence of a topologically protected helical edge channel has been verified for the vacuum-facing surface of several topological insulators by means of angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and scanning tunnelling microscopy. By performing tunnelling spectroscopy on heterojunction devices composed of p-type topological insulator (Bi1−xSbx)2Te3 and n-type conventional semiconductor InP, we report the observation of such states at the solid-state interface. Under an applied magnetic field, we observe a resonance in the tunnelling conductance through the heterojunction due to the formation of Landau levels of two-dimensional Dirac electrons at the interface. Moreover, resonant tunnelling spectroscopy reveals a systematic dependence of the Fermi velocity and Dirac point energy on the composition x. The successful formation of robust non-trivial edge channels at a solid-state interface is an essential step towards functional junctions based on topological insulators.