Exceptional surface and bulk electronic structures in a topological insulator, Bi 2 Se 3

Abstract

The outstanding problem in topological insulators is the bulk metallicity underneath topologically ordered surface states and the appearance of Dirac point far away from the Fermi energy. Enormous efforts are being devoted to get the Dirac point at the Fermi level via exposure to foreign materials so that these materials can be used in technology and realize novel fundamental physics. Ironically, the conclusion of bulk metallicity in the electronic structure is essentially based on the angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy, a highly surface sensitive technique. Here, we employed state-of-the-art hard x-ray photoemission spectroscopy with judiciously chosen experiment geometry to delineate the bulk electronic structure of a topological insulator and a potential thermoelectric material, Bi 2 Se 3. The results exhibit signature of insulating bulk electronic structure with tiny intensities at akin to defect/vacancy induced doped states in the semiconductors. The core level spectra exhibit intense plasmon peak associated to core level excitations manifesting the signature of coupling of electrons to the collective excitations, a possible case of plasmon-phonon coupling. In addition, a new loss feature appear in the core level spectra indicating presence of additional collective excitations in the system.