Crystal Structure and Chemistry of Topological Insulators

Topological surface states, a new kind of electronic state of matter, have recently been observed on the cleaved surfaces of crystals of a handful of small band gap semiconductors. The underlying chemical factors that enable these states are crystal symmetry, the presence of strong spin orbit coupling, and an inversion of the energies of the bulk electronic states that normally contribute to the valence and conduction bands. The goals of this review are to briefly introduce the physics of topological insulators to a chemical audience and to describe the chemistry, defect chemistry, and crystal structures of the compounds in this emergent field.Comment: Submitted to Journal of Materials Chemistry, 47 double spaced pages, 9 figure

The hole Fermi surface in Bi2_{2}Se3_{3} probed by quantum oscillations

Transport and torque magnetometry measurements are performed at high magnetic fields and low temperatures in a series of p-type (Ca-doped) Bi$_{2}$Se$_{3}$ crystals. The angular dependence of the Shubnikov-de Haas and de Haas-van Alphen quantum oscillations enables us to determine the Fermi surface of the bulk valence band states as a function of the carrier density. At low density, the angular dependence exhibits a downturn in the oscillations frequency between $0^\circ$ and $90^\circ$, reflecting a bag-shaped hole Fermi surface. The detection of a single frequency for all tilt angles rules out the existence of a Fermi surface with different extremal cross-sections down to $24$~meV. There is therefore no signature of a camel-back in the valence band of our bulk samples, in accordance with the direct band gap predicted by $GW$ calculations.Comment: A supplemental material file giving a more detailed description of our work is available upon reques

Chemically gated electronic structure of a superconducting doped topological insulator system

Angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy is used to observe changes in the electronic structure of bulk-doped topological insulator Cu$_x$Bi$_2$Se$_3$ as additional copper atoms are deposited onto the cleaved crystal surface. Carrier density and surface-normal electrical field strength near the crystal surface are estimated to consider the effect of chemical surface gating on atypical superconducting properties associated with topological insulator order, such as the dynamics of theoretically predicted Majorana Fermion vortices

Non-collinear long-range magnetic ordering in HgCr2S4

The low-temperature magnetic structure of \HG has been studied by high-resolution powder neutron diffraction. Long-range incommensurate magnetic order sets in at T$_N\sim$22K with propagation vector \textbf{k}=(0,0,$\sim$0.18). On cooling below T$_N$, the propagation vector increases and saturates at the commensurate value \textbf{k}=(0,0,0.25). The magnetic structure below T$_N$ consists of ferromagnetic layers in the \textit{ab}-plane stacked in a spiral arrangement along the \textit{c}-axis. Symmetry analysis using corepresentations theory reveals a point group symmetry in the ordered magnetic phase of 422 (D$_4$), which is incompatible with macroscopic ferroelectricity. This finding indicates that the spontaneous electric polarization observed experimentally cannot be coupled to the magnetic order parameter

Experimental Observation of Environment-induced Sudden Death of Entanglement

We demonstrate the difference between local, single-particle dynamics and global dynamics of entangled quantum systems coupled to independent environments. Using an all-optical experimental setup, we show that, while the environment-induced decay of each system is asymptotic, quantum entanglement may suddenly disappear. This "sudden death" constitutes yet another distinct and counter-intuitive trait of entanglement.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure