Regensburg 2010 – scientific programme

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TT: Fachverband Tiefe Temperaturen

TT 41: CE: Low-dimensional Systems - Models 2

TT 41.6: Talk

Friday, March 26, 2010, 11:45–12:00, H21

The effect of surface curvature on conductivity in 3D topological insulators — •Jan Dahlhaus, Chang-You Hou, Anton Akhmerov, and Carlo Beenakker — Instituut-Lorentz, Universiteit Leiden, The Netherlands

The surface spectrum of a three-dimensional (3D) topological insulator consists of massless Dirac fermions. Their movement on the surface has to follow a geodesic trajectory, akin to a photon in curved space. In this work, we study electron scattering due to surface roughness which is modeled as curvature of the surface. The resulting effect on conductivity is estimated using the Boltzmann Equation. This scattering mechanism leads to a distinguishable signature of the conductivity on the electron density.