Thickness-dependent quantum oscillations of the transport properties in bismuth selenide thin films

The objects of the present study were thin n-Bi2Se3 films with thicknesses d = 10-100 nm, grown by thermal evaporation of n-Bi2Se3 crystals in vacuum onto heated glass substrates. The room temperature d-dependences of the Seebeck coefficient, the Hall coefficient, and the electrical conductivity of the films exhibited an oscillatory behavior, which we attribute to quantum size effects. Such interpretation of the results is supported by the fact that experimentally determined values of the oscillation period are in quite good agreement with the theoretically calculated ones. We suggest that the large amplitude and undamped character of the oscillations in the studied range of thicknesses are connected with the topologically protected gapless surface states of Bi2Se3. The observed oscillatory character of the d-dependences of the transport coefficients should be taken into account when 2D-structures are applied in nanothermoelectricity and other fields of nanoscience and nanotechnology.