bismuth selenide

Topologically protected surface states have been observed in Bismuth selenide which is the subject of ongoing scientific research.

While the results confirmed that bismuth selenide's helical spin texture persists even at room temperature, they raised a perplexing question.

Two materials are known to be topological insulators -- bismuth telluride and bismuth selenide.

The new instrument was first used at the ALS to study the well-known topological insulator bismuth selenide.

Gedik says that while this experiment was done using bismuth selenide crystals, a basic topological insulator, "what we have done is not specific to topological insulators.

Bismuth selenide (BiSe) is a gray powder that is a compound of bismuth and selenium also known as bismuth(III) selenide.

Shortly thereafter symmetry protected surface states were also observed in pure antimony, bismuth selenide, bismuth telluride and antimony telluride using ARPES.

While perfect stoichiometric bismuth selenide should be a semiconductor (with a gap of 0.3 eV) naturally occurring selenium vacancies act as electron donors and it often acts as a semimetal.

While the ALS collaboration has not yet identified a Majorana zero mode in their bismuth selenide/BSCCO heterostructures, they believe their material is fertile ground for doing so.

The bismuth selenide/BSCCO material was brought to the ALS to study the electronic states on its surface using a technique known as ARPES, for angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy.

The high quality bismuth selenide/BSCCO topological thin film heterostructure was made at Tsinghua University in the laboratory of Xi Chen and Qi-Kun Xue using molecular beam epitaxy.