Three-dimensional (3D) topological insulators are a new state of quantum matter, which exhibits both a bulk band structure with an insulating energy gap as well as metallic spin-polarized Dirac fermion states when interfaced with a topologically trivial material. There have been various attempts to tune the Dirac point to a desired energetic position for exploring its unusual quantum properties. Here we show a direct experimental proof by angle-resolved photoemission of the realization of a vertical topological p–n junction made of a heterostructure of two different binary 3D TI materials Bi2Te3 and Sb2Te3 epitaxially grown on Si(111). We demonstrate that the chemical potential is tunable by about 200 meV when decreasing the upper Sb2Te3 layer thickness from 25 to 6 quintuple layers without applying any external bias. These results make it realistic to observe the topological exciton condensate and pave the way for exploring other exotic quantum phenomena in the near future.

The effect of Si-doping on the morphology, structure, and transport properties of nanowires was investigated. The nanowires were deposited by selective-area metal organic vapor phase epitaxy in an N 2 ambient. It is observed that doping systematically affects the nanowire morphology but not the structure of the nanowires. However, the transport properties of the wires are greatly affected. Room-temperature four-terminal measurements show that with an increasing dopant supply the conductivity monotonously increases. For the highest doping level the conductivity is higher by a factor of 25 compared to only intrinsically doped reference nanowires. By means of back-gate field-effect transistor measurements it was confirmed that the doping results in an increased carrier concentration. Temperature dependent resistance measurements reveal, for lower doping concentrations, a thermally activated semiconductor-type increase of the conductivity. In contrast, the nanowires with the highest doping concentration show a metal-type decrease of the resistivity with decreasing temperature.

We investigated the transport properties of GaAs/InAs core/shell nanowires grown by molecular beam epitaxy. Owing to the band alignment between GaAs and InAs, electrons are accumulated in the InAs shell as long as the shell thickness exceeds 12 nm. By performing simulations using a Schrödinger-Poisson solver, it is confirmed that confined states are present in the InAs shell, which are depleted if the shell thickness is below a threshold value. The existence of a tubular-shaped conductor is proved by performing magnetoconductance measurements at low temperatures. Here, flux periodic conductance oscillations are observed which can be attributed to transport in one-dimensional channels based on angular momentum states.

We have modeled InAs nanowires using finite element methods considering the actual device geometry, the semiconducting nature of the channel and surface states, providing a comprehensive picture of charge distribution and gate action. The effective electrostatic gate width and screening effects are taken into account. A pivotal aspect is that the gate coupling to the nanowire is compromised by the concurrent coupling of the gate electrode to the surface/interface states, which provide the vast majority of carriers for undoped nanowires. In conjunction with field-effect transistor (FET) measurements using two gates with distinctly dissimilar couplings, the study reveals the density of surface states that gives rise to a shallow quantum well at the surface. Both gates yield identical results for the electron concentration and mobility only at the actual surface state density. Our method remedies the flaws of conventional FET analysis and provides a straightforward alternative to intricate Hall effect measurements on nanowires.