The topological properties of the bulk band structure of a three-dimensional
topological insulator (TI) manifest themselves in the form of metallic surface
states. In this paper, we propose a probe which directly couples to an exotic
property of these surface states, namely the spin-momentum locking. We show
that the information regarding the spin textures, so extracted, for different
surfaces can be put together to reconstruct the parameters characterizing the
bulk band structure of the material, hence acting as a hologram. For specific
TI materials like, Bi2Se3,Bi2Te3and Sb2Te3, the planar surface states are distinct from one another with
regard to their spectrum and the associated spin texture for each angle
(θ), which the normal to the surface makes with the crystal growth axis.
We develop a tunnel Hamiltonian between such arbitrary surfaces and a spin
polarized STM which provides a unique fingerprint of the dispersion and the
associated spin texture corresponding to each θ. Additionally, the
theory presented in this article can be used to extract value of θ for a
given arbitrary planar surface from the STM spectra itself hence effectively
mimicking X-ray spectroscopy.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, version accepted in Phys. Rev.