Structural and electronic properties of Bi2Se3topological insulator thin films grown by pulsed laser deposition

We report on epitaxial growth of Bi2Se3 topological insulator thin films by Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD). X-ray diffraction investigation confirms that Bi2Se3 with a single (001)-orientation can be obtained on several substrates in a narrow (i.e., 20 C) range of deposition temperatures and at high deposition pressure (i.e., 0.1 mbar). However, only films grown on (001)-Al2O3 substrates show an almost-unique in-plane orientation. In-situ spin-resolved angular resolved photoemission spectros- copy experiments, performed at the NFFA-APE facility of IOM-CNR and Elettra (Trieste), show a single Dirac cone with the Dirac point at EB 0:38 eV located in the center of the Brillouin zone and the spin polarization of the topological surface states. These results demonstrate that the topolog- ical surface state can be obtained in PLD-grown Bi2Se3 thin films. Published by AIP Publishing