Time-resolved terahertz dynamics in thin films of the topological insulator Bi2Se3

Valdés Aguilar, R.; Qi, J.; Brahlek, M.; Bansal, N.; Azad, A.; Bowlan, J.; Oh, S.; Taylor, A. J.; Prasankumar, R. P.; Yarotski, D. A.

doi:10.1063/1.4905438

Title: Time-resolved terahertz dynamics in thin films of the topological insulator Bi₂Se₃

Journal Article · Wed Jan 07 00:00:00 EST 2015 · Applied Physics Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4905438· OSTI ID:1234262

Valdés Aguilar, R. ^[1]; Qi, J. ^[2]; Brahlek, M. ^[3]; Bansal, N. ^[3]; Azad, A. ^[2]; Bowlan, J. ^[2]; Oh, S. ^[3]; Taylor, A. J. ^[2]; Prasankumar, R. P. ^[2]; Yarotski, D. A. ^[2]

The Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH (United States); Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Rutgers the State Univ. of New Jersey, Piscataway, NJ (United States)

We use optical pump–THz probe spectroscopy at low temperatures to study the hot carrier response in thin Bi₂Se₃ films of several thicknesses, allowing us to separate the bulk from the surface transient response. We find that for thinner films the photoexcitation changes the transport scattering rate and reduces the THz conductivity, which relaxes within 10 picoseconds (ps). For thicker films, the conductivity increases upon photoexcitation and scales with increasing both the film thickness and the optical fluence, with a decay time of approximately 5 ps as well as a much higher scattering rate. Furthermore, these different dynamics are attributed to the surface and bulk electrons, respectively, and demonstrate that long-lived mobile surface photo-carriers can be accessed independently below certain film thicknesses for possible optoelectronic applications.

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Research Organization:: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE

Grant/Contract Number:: 237789; AC52-06NA25396

OSTI ID:: 1234262

Report Number(s):: LA-UR-14-27978; APPLAB

Journal Information:: Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 106, Issue 1; ISSN 0003-6951

Publisher:: American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 54 works

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