Observation of a topologically non-trivial surface state in half-Heusler PtLuSb (001) thin films
Abstract
The discovery of topological insulators, materials with bulk band gaps and protected cross-gap surface states in compounds such as Bi2Se3, has generated much interest in identifying topological surface states (TSSs) in other classes of materials. In particular, recent theoretical calculations suggest that TSSs may be found in half-Heusler ternary compounds. If experimentally realizable, this would provide a materials platform for entirely new heterostructure spintronic devices that make use of the structurally identical but electronically varied nature of Heusler compounds. Here we show the presence of a TSS in epitaxially grown thin films of the half-Heusler compound PtLuSb. Spin- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, complemented by theoretical calculations, reveals a surface state with linear dispersion and a helical tangential spin texture consistent with previous predictions. As a result, this experimental verification of topological behavior is a significant step forward in establishing half-Heusler compounds as a viable material system for future spintronic devices.
- Authors:
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1307467
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0014388
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Nature Communications
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 7; Journal ID: ISSN 2041-1723
- Publisher:
- Nature Publishing Group
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
Citation Formats
Logan, J. A., Patel, S. J., Harrington, S. D., Polley, C. M., Schultz, B. D., Balasubramanian, T., Janotti, A., Mikkelsen, A., and Palmstrøm, C. J. Observation of a topologically non-trivial surface state in half-Heusler PtLuSb (001) thin films. United States: N. p., 2016.
Web. doi:10.1038/ncomms11993.
Logan, J. A., Patel, S. J., Harrington, S. D., Polley, C. M., Schultz, B. D., Balasubramanian, T., Janotti, A., Mikkelsen, A., & Palmstrøm, C. J. Observation of a topologically non-trivial surface state in half-Heusler PtLuSb (001) thin films. United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms11993
Logan, J. A., Patel, S. J., Harrington, S. D., Polley, C. M., Schultz, B. D., Balasubramanian, T., Janotti, A., Mikkelsen, A., and Palmstrøm, C. J. Mon .
"Observation of a topologically non-trivial surface state in half-Heusler PtLuSb (001) thin films". United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms11993. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1307467.
@article{osti_1307467,
title = {Observation of a topologically non-trivial surface state in half-Heusler PtLuSb (001) thin films},
author = {Logan, J. A. and Patel, S. J. and Harrington, S. D. and Polley, C. M. and Schultz, B. D. and Balasubramanian, T. and Janotti, A. and Mikkelsen, A. and Palmstrøm, C. J.},
abstractNote = {The discovery of topological insulators, materials with bulk band gaps and protected cross-gap surface states in compounds such as Bi2Se3, has generated much interest in identifying topological surface states (TSSs) in other classes of materials. In particular, recent theoretical calculations suggest that TSSs may be found in half-Heusler ternary compounds. If experimentally realizable, this would provide a materials platform for entirely new heterostructure spintronic devices that make use of the structurally identical but electronically varied nature of Heusler compounds. Here we show the presence of a TSS in epitaxially grown thin films of the half-Heusler compound PtLuSb. Spin- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, complemented by theoretical calculations, reveals a surface state with linear dispersion and a helical tangential spin texture consistent with previous predictions. As a result, this experimental verification of topological behavior is a significant step forward in establishing half-Heusler compounds as a viable material system for future spintronic devices.},
doi = {10.1038/ncomms11993},
journal = {Nature Communications},
number = ,
volume = 7,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Jun 27 00:00:00 EDT 2016},
month = {Mon Jun 27 00:00:00 EDT 2016}
}
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
Other availability
Search WorldCat to find libraries that may hold this journal
Cited by: 42 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science
Web of Science
Save to My Library
You must Sign In or Create an Account in order to save documents to your library.
Works referenced in this record:
Observation of a large-gap topological-insulator class with a single Dirac cone on the surface
journal, May 2009
- Xia, Y.; Qian, D.; Hsieh, D.
- Nature Physics, Vol. 5, Issue 6, p. 398-402
Topological Insulator Materials
journal, October 2013
- Ando, Yoichi
- Journal of the Physical Society of Japan, Vol. 82, Issue 10, Article No. 102001
Topological insulators
journal, October 2014
- Felser, Claudia; Qi, Xiao-Liang
- MRS Bulletin, Vol. 39, Issue 10
Simple rules for the understanding of Heusler compounds
journal, May 2011
- Graf, Tanja; Felser, Claudia; Parkin, Stuart S. P.
- Progress in Solid State Chemistry, Vol. 39, Issue 1
Half-metallic ferromagnets: From band structure to many-body effects
journal, April 2008
- Katsnelson, M. I.; Irkhin, V. Yu.; Chioncel, L.
- Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol. 80, Issue 2
Covalent bonding and the nature of band gaps in some half-Heusler compounds
journal, February 2006
- Kandpal, Hem Chandra; Felser, Claudia; Seshadri, Ram
- Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, Vol. 39, Issue 5
Topological insulators and superconductors
journal, October 2011
- Qi, Xiao-Liang; Zhang, Shou-Cheng
- Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol. 83, Issue 4
Topological electronic structure in half-Heusler topological insulators
journal, September 2010
- Al-Sawai, W.; Lin, Hsin; Markiewicz, R. S.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 82, Issue 12
Tunable multifunctional topological insulators in ternary Heusler compounds
journal, May 2010
- Chadov, Stanislav; Qi, Xiaoliang; Kübler, Jürgen
- Nature Materials, Vol. 9, Issue 7
Half-Heusler ternary compounds as new multifunctional experimental platforms for topological quantum phenomena
journal, May 2010
- Lin, Hsin; Wray, L. Andrew; Xia, Yuqi
- Nature Materials, Vol. 9, Issue 7
Electronic structure and linear magnetoresistance of the gapless topological insulator PtLuSb
journal, June 2012
- Shekhar, Chandra; Ouardi, Siham; Fecher, Gerhard H.
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 100, Issue 25
Transition from semiconducting to metallic-like conducting and weak antilocalization effect in single crystals of LuPtSb
journal, March 2015
- Hou, Zhipeng; Wang, Yue; Xu, Guizhou
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 106, Issue 10
Surface and electronic structure of epitaxial PtLuSb (001) thin films
journal, May 2014
- Patel, Sahil J.; Kawasaki, Jason K.; Logan, John
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 104, Issue 20
Theoretical search for half-Heusler topological insulators
journal, March 2015
- Lin, Shi-Yuan; Chen, Ming; Yang, Xiao-Bao
- Physical Review B, Vol. 91, Issue 9
A new class of topological insulators from I-III-IV half-Heusler compounds with strong band inversion strength
journal, February 2014
- Zhang, X. M.; Xu, G. Z.; Du, Y.
- Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 115, Issue 8
Tunable spin helical Dirac quasiparticles on the surface of three-dimensional HgTe
journal, September 2015
- Liu, Chang; Bian, Guang; Chang, Tay-Rong
- Physical Review B, Vol. 92, Issue 11
Dirac Cone with Helical Spin Polarization in Ultrathin -Sn(001) Films
journal, November 2013
- Ohtsubo, Yoshiyuki; Le Fèvre, Patrick; Bertran, François
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 111, Issue 21
Metallic surface electronic state in half-Heusler compounds PtBi ( Lu, Dy, Gd)
journal, May 2011
- Liu, Chang; Lee, Yongbin; Kondo, Takeshi
- Physical Review B, Vol. 83, Issue 20
Periodic Oscillations of the Frequency-Dependent Photoelectric Cross Sections of Surface States: Theory and Experiment
journal, February 1980
- Louie, Steven G.; Thiry, P.; Pinchaux, R.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 44, Issue 8
Intrinsic point defects in aluminum antimonide
journal, April 2008
- Åberg, Daniel; Erhart, Paul; Williamson, Andrew J.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 77, Issue 16
Massless or heavy due to two-fold symmetry: Surface-state electrons at W(110)
journal, October 2012
- Miyamoto, K.; Kimura, A.; Okuda, T.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 86, Issue 16
Spin photocurrents in quantum wells
journal, May 2003
- Ganichev, S. D.; Prettl, W.
- Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, Vol. 15, Issue 20
Molecular beam epitaxy growth of InSb films on GaAs
journal, May 1989
- Davis, John L.; Thompson, Phillip E.
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 54, Issue 22
Growth and transport properties of epitaxial lattice matched half Heusler CoTiSb/InAlAs/InP(001) heterostructures
journal, January 2014
- Kawasaki, Jason K.; Johansson, Linda I. M.; Schultz, Brian D.
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 104, Issue 2
ErAs interlayers for limiting interfacial reactions in Fe/GaAs(100) heterostructures
journal, January 2002
- Schultz, B. D.; Farrell, H. H.; Evans, M. M. R.
- Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology B: Microelectronics and Nanometer Structures, Vol. 20, Issue 4
Surface reconstructions and transport of epitaxial PtLuSb (001) thin films grown by MBE
journal, February 2016
- Patel, Sahil J.; Logan, John A.; Harrington, Sean D.
- Journal of Crystal Growth, Vol. 436
Efficiency of ab-initio total energy calculations for metals and semiconductors using a plane-wave basis set
journal, July 1996
- Kresse, G.; Furthmüller, J.
- Computational Materials Science, Vol. 6, Issue 1, p. 15-50
Superconductivity in palladium-based Heusler compounds
journal, February 2009
- Winterlik, Jürgen; Fecher, Gerhard H.; Thomas, Anja
- Physical Review B, Vol. 79, Issue 6
Elemental Topological Insulator with Tunable Fermi Level: Strained -Sn on InSb(001)
journal, October 2013
- Barfuss, A.; Dudy, L.; Scholz, M. R.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 111, Issue 15
Topological insulators
journal, October 2014
- Felser, Claudia; Qi, Xiao-Liang
- MRS Bulletin, Vol. 39, Issue 10
Intrinsic point defects in aluminum antimonide
text, January 2010
- Åberg, Daniel; Erhart, Paul; Williamson, Andrew J.
- arXiv
Anisotropy effects on Rashba and topological insulator spin polarized surface states: a unified phenomenological description
text, January 2011
- Frantzeskakis, Emmanouil; Grioni, Marco
- arXiv
Spin Photocurrents in Quantum Wells review part I, (part II: cond-mat/one of the next numbers)
preprint, January 2003
- Ganichev, S. D.; Prettl, W.
- arXiv
Works referencing / citing this record:
Thermoelectric Properties of Topological Insulators
journal, April 2018
- Ivanov, Yuri V.; Burkov, Alexander T.; Pshenay-Severin, Dmitry A.
- physica status solidi (b), Vol. 255, Issue 7
Heusler, Weyl and Berry
journal, July 2018
- Manna, Kaustuv; Sun, Yan; Muechler, Lukas
- Nature Reviews Materials, Vol. 3, Issue 8
Electronic structure of the PrNiBi half-Heusler system based on the σGGA + U method
journal, December 2019
- Mikaeilzadeh, L.; Tavana, A.; Khoeini, F.
- Scientific Reports, Vol. 9, Issue 1
Dramatically improving thermoelectric performance of topological half-Heusler compound LuPtSb via hydrostatic pressure
journal, January 2018
- Huang, Shan; Liu, Xiaowei; Zheng, Wenwen
- Journal of Materials Chemistry A, Vol. 6, Issue 41
Valence-band offsets of CoTiSb/In 0.53 Ga 0.47 As and CoTiSb/In 0.52 Al 0.48 As heterojunctions
journal, August 2017
- Harrington, S. D.; Sharan, A.; Rice, A. D.
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 111, Issue 6
Electronic structure of epitaxial half-Heusler Co 1-x Ni x TiSb across the semiconductor to metal transition
journal, August 2018
- Harrington, S. D.; Logan, J. A.; Chatterjee, S.
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 113, Issue 9
Nanometer scale structural and compositional inhomogeneities of half-Heusler CoTi 1-x Fe x Sb thin films
journal, May 2019
- Bonef, Bastien; Harrington, Sean D.; Pennachio, Daniel J.
- Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 125, Issue 20
Heusler interfaces—Opportunities beyond spintronics?
journal, August 2019
- Kawasaki, Jason K.
- APL Materials, Vol. 7, Issue 8
Crystalline electric field study in a putative topologically trivial rare-earth doped YPdBi compound
journal, August 2019
- Souza, J. C.; Jesus, C. B. R.; Lesseux, G. G.
- Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, Vol. 31, Issue 46
Double band inversion in -Sn: Appearance of topological surface states and the role of orbital composition
journal, April 2017
- Rogalev, Victor A.; Rauch, Tomáš; Scholz, Markus R.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 95, Issue 16
Model Hamiltonian and time reversal breaking topological phases of antiferromagnetic half-Heusler materials
journal, June 2017
- Yu, Jiabin; Yan, Binghai; Liu, Chao-Xing
- Physical Review B, Vol. 95, Issue 23
Magnetotransport properties and giant anomalous Hall angle in the half-Heusler compound TbPtBi
journal, January 2019
- Singha, Ratnadwip; Roy, Shubhankar; Pariari, Arnab
- Physical Review B, Vol. 99, Issue 3
Prediction of Triple Point Fermions in Simple Half-Heusler Topological Insulators
journal, September 2017
- Yang, Hao; Yu, Jiabin; Parkin, Stuart S. P.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 119, Issue 13
Linear-in-Frequency Optical Conductivity in GdPtBi due to Transitions near the Triple Points
journal, October 2018
- Hütt, F.; Yaresko, A.; Schilling, M. B.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 121, Issue 17
Formation of two-dimensional electron and hole gases at the interface of half-Heusler semiconductors
journal, June 2019
- Sharan, Abhishek; Gui, Zhigang; Janotti, Anderson
- Physical Review Materials, Vol. 3, Issue 6
Dirac nodal lines protected against spin-orbit interaction in
journal, June 2019
- Nelson, J. N.; Ruf, J. P.; Lee, Y.
- Physical Review Materials, Vol. 3, Issue 6
Peculiar half-metallic state in zigzag nanoribbons of : Spin filtering
journal, September 2016
- Khoeini, F.; Shakouri, Kh.; Peeters, F. M.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 94, Issue 12
Double Band Inversion in $ α$-Sn: Appearance of Topological Surface States and the Role of Orbital Composition
text, January 2017
- Rogalev, Victor A.; Rauch, Tomáš; Scholz, Markus R.
- arXiv
Model Hamiltonian and Time Reversal Breaking Topological Phases of Anti-ferromagnetic Half-Heusler Materials
text, January 2017
- Yu, Jiabin; Yan, Binghai; Liu, Chao-Xing
- arXiv
Prediction of triple point fermions in simple half-Heusler topological insulators
text, January 2017
- Yang, Hao; Yu, Jiabin; Parkin, Stuart S. P.
- arXiv
Magnetotransport properties and giant anomalous Hall angle in half-Heusler compound TbPtBi
text, January 2019
- Singha, Ratnadwip; Roy, Shubhankar; Pariari, Arnab
- arXiv
Electronic structure of the PrNiBi half-Heusler system based on the σGGA + U method
journal, December 2019
- Mikaeilzadeh, L.; Tavana, A.; Khoeini, F.
- Scientific Reports, Vol. 9, Issue 1