Bi₂Se₃ Topological Insulators

Topological Insulators are a new class of materials in condensed matter physics which are pioneers in the next generation applications like spintronic devices and quantum computation. They are characterized by having conducting surface states but are insulators in the bulk. The surface states of these topological insulators show Dirac-like behaviour with the spin polarization locked perpendicular to the electron momentum by the effect of strong spin?orbit interaction.Theoretical interest in topological surface states is high, stimulated by their observation in HgTe based quantum wells and the prediction and then observation that they are present on the surface of bulk Bi-Sb alloy crystals. Afterwards many more materials were discovered as 3D Topological Insulators like Sb2Te3, Bi2Te3 and Bi2Se3 etc. Here in our laboratory we are preparing large pure single crystals of topological insulators like Bi2Se3, Bi2Te3 etc. well for thermoelectric properties. We also intercalated Cu in Bi2Se3 single crystals which turns the sample from topological insulator to topological superconductor having superconducting transition temperature of 3.4K. We also synthesized topological insulator nanomaterials and discovering its supercapacitor properties for high energy storage application and devices.