Opto-electronic characterization of three dimensional topological insulators

Abstract

We demonstrate that the terahertz/infrared radiation induced photogalvanic effect, which is sensitive to the surface symmetry and scattering details, can be applied to study the high frequency conductivity of the surface states in (Bi1−xSbx)2Te3 based three dimensional (3D) topological insulators (TIs). In particular, measuring the polarization dependence of the photogalvanic current and scanning with a micrometre sized beam spot across the sample, provides access to (i) topographical inhomogeneities in the electronic properties of the surface states and (ii) the local domain orientation. An important advantage of the proposed method is that it can be applied to study TIs at room temperature and even in materials with a high electron density of bulk carriers.