The electron-phonon interaction at deep Bi 2 Te3-semiconductor interfaces from Brillouin light scattering

Sci Rep. 2017 Nov 27;7(1):16449. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-16313-5.

Abstract

It is shown that the electron-phonon interaction at a conducting interface between a topological insulator thin film and a semiconductor substrate can be directly probed by means of high-resolution Brillouin light scattering (BLS). The observation of Kohn anomalies in the surface phonon dispersion curves of a 50 nm thick Bi2Te3 film on GaAs, besides demonstrating important electron-phonon coupling effects in the GHz frequency domain, shows that information on deep interface electrons can be obtained by tuning the penetration depth of optically-generated surface phonons so as to selectively probe the interface region, as in a sort of quantum sonar.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't