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Landau Quantization of Topological Surface States in Bi2Se3

Peng Cheng, Canli Song, Tong Zhang, Yanyi Zhang, Yilin Wang, Jin-Feng Jia, Jing Wang, Yayu Wang, Bang-Fen Zhu, Xi Chen, Xucun Ma, Ke He, Lili Wang, Xi Dai, Zhong Fang, Xincheng Xie, Xiao-Liang Qi, Chao-Xing Liu, Shou-Cheng Zhang, and Qi-Kun Xue
Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 076801 – Published 9 August 2010
Physics logo See Viewpoint: Quantized topological surface states promise a quantum Hall state in topological insulators

Abstract

We report the direct observation of Landau quantization in Bi2Se3 thin films by using a low-temperature scanning tunneling microscope. In particular, we discovered the zeroth Landau level, which is predicted to give rise to the half-quantized Hall effect for the topological surface states. The existence of the discrete Landau levels (LLs) and the suppression of LLs by surface impurities strongly support the 2D nature of the topological states. These observations may eventually lead to the realization of quantum Hall effect in topological insulators.

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  • Received 25 May 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.076801

© 2010 The American Physical Society

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Quantized topological surface states promise a quantum Hall state in topological insulators

Published 9 August 2010

The first experimental observation of Landau levels in the surface states of a three-dimensional topological insulator confirms the levels obey unconventional quantization rules.

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Authors & Affiliations

Peng Cheng1, Canli Song1, Tong Zhang1,2, Yanyi Zhang1, Yilin Wang2, Jin-Feng Jia1, Jing Wang1, Yayu Wang1, Bang-Fen Zhu1, Xi Chen1,*, Xucun Ma2,†, Ke He2, Lili Wang2, Xi Dai2, Zhong Fang2, Xincheng Xie2, Xiao-Liang Qi3,4, Chao-Xing Liu4,5, Shou-Cheng Zhang4, and Qi-Kun Xue1,2

  • 1Department of Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
  • 2Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
  • 3Microsoft Research, Station Q, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA
  • 4Department of Physics, Stanford University, Stanford California 94305, USA
  • 5Physikalisches Institut, Universität Würzburg, D-97074 Würzburg, Germany

  • *xc@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn
  • xcma@aphy.iphy.ac.cn

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Issue

Vol. 105, Iss. 7 — 13 August 2010

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