Bulk-to-surface misorientation and the spin texture of topological insulators

Abstract

Weak topological insulators possess a symmetry related set of Dirac-Weyl cones in the surface Brillouin zone, implying misorientation between the principle axis of the low energy manifold of the bulk and the surface normal. We show that this feature of weak topological insulators comes with a hidden richness of surface spin textures, and that by misorientation a helical texture can become an unusual hyperbolic spin texture. We illustrate this effect by comparison of the M -point and Γ-point Dirac-Weyl cones on the (111) surface of the crystalline topological insulator SnTe.