Journal
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
Volume 5, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms4841
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Funding
- US DARPA [N66001-11-1-4110]
- Office of Basic Energy Science
- US Department of Energy [DE-FG-02-05ER462000, AC03-76SF00098, DE-FG02-07ER46352, DE-FG02- 07ER46352]
- A.P. Sloan Foundation
- Swedish Research Council
- Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation
- German Federal Ministry of Education and Research
- Basic Energy Sciences of the US Department of Energy
- National Science Council and Academia Sinica in Taiwan
- NERSC
- Northeastern University's Advanced Scientific Computation Center
- NRF [NRF-NRFF2013-03]
- National Science Council, Taiwan
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory [DE-FG02-05ER46200]
- U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) [DE-FG02-05ER46200] Funding Source: U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)
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Understanding the spin-texture behaviour of boundary modes in ultrathin topological insulator films is critically essential for the design and fabrication of functional nanodevices. Here, by using spin-resolved photoemission spectroscopy with p-polarized light in topological insulator Bi2Se3 thin films, we report tunnelling-dependent evolution of spin configuration in topological insulator thin films across the metal-to-insulator transition. We report a systematic binding energy-and wavevector-dependent spin polarization for the topological surface electrons in the ultrathin gapped-Dirac-cone limit. The polarization decreases significantly with enhanced tunnelling realized systematically in thin insulating films, whereas magnitude of the polarization saturates to the bulk limit faster at larger wavevectors in thicker metallic films. We present a theoretical model that captures this delicate relationship between quantum tunnelling and Fermi surface spin polarization. Our high-resolution spin-based spectroscopic results suggest that the polarization current can be tuned to zero in thin insulating films forming the basis for a future spin-switch nanodevice.
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