1206.2090 (Su-Yang Xu et al.)

Spin-Texture Reorientation transition demonstrated on the surface of a
topological insulator (A Bi2Se3 based Surface Magnetic Topological Insulator
in MBE films)    [PDF]

Su-Yang Xu, M. Neupane, Chang Liu, D. M. Zhang, A. Richardella, L. A. Wray, N. Alidoust, M. Leandersson, T. Balasubramanian, J. Sánchez-Barriga, O. Rader, G. Landolt, B. Slomski, J. H. Dil, T. -R. Chang, J. Osterwalder, H. -T. Jeng, H. Lin, A. Bansil, Nitin Samarth, M. Z. Hasan

The surface of topological insulators is proposed as a promising platform for spintronics and quantum information applications. In particular, when time- reversal symmetry is broken, topological surface states are expected to exhibit a wide range of exotic spin phenomena for potential implementation in electronics. Such devices need to be fabricated using nanoscale artificial thin films. It is of critical importance to study the spin behavior of artificial topological thin films associated with magnetic dopants, and with regards to quantum size effects related to surface-to-surface tunneling as well as experimentally isolate time-reversal breaking from non-intrinsic surface electronic gaps. Here we present observation of the first (and thorough) study of magnetically induced spin reorientation phenomena on the surface of a topological insulator. Our results reveal dramatic rearrangements of the spin configuration upon magnetic doping contrasted with chemically similar nonmagnetic doping as well as with quantum tunneling phenomena in ultra-thin films. While we observe that the spin rearrangement induced by quantum tunneling occurs in a time-reversal invariant fashion, we present critical and systematic observation of an out-of-plane spin texture evolution correlated with magnetic interactions, which breaks time-reversal symmetry, demonstrating TRB at a Kramers' point on the surface. At a qualitatively distinct level, these time-reversal breaking spin effects are independent of the degree of homogeneity of the magnetic dopants. We further demonstrate the realization of a chemically tuned geometrical Berry's phase switch that can be turned on and off via surface chemical gating.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1206.2090