Observation of Unconventional Quantum Spin Textures in Topological Insulators
Abstract
A topologically ordered material is characterized by a rare quantum organization of electrons that evades the conventional spontaneously broken symmetry–based classification of condensed matter. Exotic spin-transport phenomena, such as the dissipationless quantum spin Hall effect, have been speculated to originate from a topological order whose identification requires a spin-sensitive measurement, which does not exist to this date in any system. Using Mott polarimetry, we probed the spin degrees of freedom and demonstrated that topological quantum numbers are completely determined from spin texture–imaging measurements. Applying this method to Sb and Bi1–xSbx, we identified the origin of its topological order and unusual chiral properties. These results taken together constitute the first observation of surface electrons collectively carrying a topological quantum Berry's phase and definite spin chirality, which are the key electronic properties component for realizing topological quantum computing bits with intrinsic spin Hall–like topological phenomena.
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We thank J. Teo for providing the SS band calculations of antimony (Sb); A. Fedorov, L. Patthey, and D.-H. Lu for beamline assistance; and D. Haldane, B. I. Halperin, N. P. Ong, D. A. Huse, F. Wilczek, P. W. Anderson, D. C. Tsui, J. E. Moore, L. Fu, L. Balents, D.-H. Lee, S. Sachdev, P. A. Lee, and X.-G. Wen for stimulating discussions. C.L.K. was supported by NSF grant DMR-0605066. The spin-resolved ARPES experiments are supported by NSF through the Center for Complex Materials (DMR-0819860) and Princeton University; the use of synchrotron X-ray facilities (ALS-LBNL, Berkeley, and SSRL-SLAC, Stanford) is supported by the Basic Energy Sciences of the U.S. Department of Energy (DE-FG-02–05ER46200) and by the Swiss Light Source, Paul Scherrer Institute, Villigen, Switzerland.
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Science
Volume 323 | Issue 5916
13 February 2009
13 February 2009
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American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Submission history
Received: 27 October 2008
Accepted: 7 January 2009
Published in print: 13 February 2009
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