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Updated: Apr 29, 2026
Experimental Methods for Spin- and Angle-Resolved Photoemission Spectroscopy Combined with Polarization-Variable Laser
Published on: June 28, 2018
Experimental observation of Dirac-like surface states and topological phase transition in Pb(1-x)Sn(x)Te(111) films
Chenhui Yan1, Junwei Liu2, Yunyi Zang2
1State Key Laboratory of Low-Dimensional Quantum Physics, Department of Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China and Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter, Beijing 100084, China and Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China.
Abstract:
The surface of a topological crystalline insulator (TCI) carries an even number of Dirac cones protected by crystalline symmetry. We epitaxially grew high-quality Pb(1-x)Sn(x)Te(111) films and investigated the TCI phase by in situ angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. Pb(1-x)Sn(x)Te(111) films undergo a topological phase transition from a trivial insulator to TCI via increasing the Sn/Pb ratio, accompanied by a crossover from n-type to p-type doping. In addition, a hybridization gap is opened in the surface states when the thickness of the film is reduced to the two-dimensional limit. The work demonstrates an approach to manipulating the topological properties of TCI, which is of importance for future fundamental research and applications based on TCI.
