Suppression of bulk conductivity in InAs/GaSb broken gap composite quantum wells

The two-dimensional topological insulator state in InAs/GaSb quantum wells manifests itself by topologically protected helical edge channel transport relying on an insulating bulk. This work investigates a way of suppressing bulk conductivity by using gallium source materials of different degrees of impurity concentrations. While highest-purity gallium is accompanied by clear conduction through the sample bulk, intentional impurity incorporation leads to a bulk resistance over 1 M Omega, independent of applied magnetic fields. In addition, ultra high electron mobilities for GaAs/AlGaAs structures fabricated in a molecular beam epitaxy system used for the growth of Sb-based samples are reported. (C) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.