Driven electronic states at the surface of a topological insulator

Benjamin M. Fregoso, Y. H. Wang, N. Gedik, and Victor Galitski
Phys. Rev. B 88, 155129 – Published 23 October 2013

Abstract

Motivated by recent photoemission experiments on the surface of topological insulators we compute the spectrum of driven topological surface excitations in the presence of an external light source. We completely characterize the spectral function of these nonequilibrium electron excitations for both linear and circular polarizations of the incident light. We find that in the latter case, the circularly polarized light gaps out the surface states, whereas linear polarization gives rise to an anisotropic metal with multiple Dirac cones. We compare the sizes of the gaps with recent pump-probe photoemission measurements and find good agreement. We also identify theoretically several new features in the time-dependent spectral function, such as shadow Dirac cones.

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  • Received 29 May 2013

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.88.155129

©2013 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Benjamin M. Fregoso1,2, Y. H. Wang3,4, N. Gedik3, and Victor Galitski2

  • 1Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley CA 94720, USA
  • 2Joint Quantum Institute and Condensed Matter Theory Center, Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742-4111, USA
  • 3Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA
  • 4Department of Applied Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA

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Issue

Vol. 88, Iss. 15 — 15 October 2013

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