A Natural Topological Insulator
(2013) Nano Letters : a journal dedicated to nanoscience and nanotechnology — Vol. 13, n° np, p. 1179-1184 (2013)
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- Abstract
- The earth’s crust and outer space are rich sources of technologically relevant materials which have found application in a wide range of fields. Well established examples are diamond, one of the hardest known materials, or graphite as a suitable precursor of graphene. The ongoing drive to discover novel materials useful for (opto)electronic applications has recently drawn strong attention to topological insulators. Here, we report that Kawazulite, a mineral with the approximate composition Bi_2(Te,Se)_2(Se,S), represents a naturally occurring topological insulator whose electronic properties compete well with those of its synthetic counterparts. Kawazulite flakes with a thickness of a few tens of nanometers were prepared by mechanical exfoliation. They exhibit a low intrinsic bulk doping level and correspondingly a sizable mobility of surface state carriers of more than 1000 cm^2/(V s) at low temperature. Based on these findings, further minerals which due to their minimized defect densities display even better electronic characteristics may be identified in the future.
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Gehring, P., Benia, H. M., Weng, Y., & et al. (2013). A Natural Topological Insulator. Nano Letters : a journal dedicated to nanoscience and nanotechnology, 13(np), 1179-1184. https://doi.org/10.1021/nl304583m (Original work published 2013)