title: Emergence of decoupled surface transport channels in bulk insulating Bi(2)Se(3) thin films.
abstract: In ideal topological insulator (TI) films the bulk state, which is supposed to be insulating, should not provide any electric coupling between the two metallic surfaces. However, transport studies on existing TI films show that the topological states on opposite surfaces are electrically tied to each other at thicknesses far greater than the direct coupling limit where the surface wave functions overlap. Here, we show that as the conducting bulk channels are suppressed, the parasitic coupling effect diminishes, and the decoupled surface channels emerge as expected for ideal TIs. In Bi(2)Se(3) thin films with fully suppressed bulk states, the two surfaces, which are directly coupled below ∼10  QL, become gradually isolated with increasing thickness and are completely decoupled beyond ∼20  QL. On such a platform, it is now feasible to implement transport devices whose functionality relies on accessing the individual surface layers without any deleterious coupling effects.
authors: Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, USA.
authors: Matthew
authors: M
authors: Brahlek
authors: Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, USA.
authors: Nikesh
authors: N
authors: Koirala
authors: Deparment of Materials Science and Engineering, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, USA.
authors: Maryam
authors: M
authors: Salehi
authors: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, USA.
authors: Namrata
authors: N
authors: Bansal
authors: Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854, USA.
authors: Seongshik
authors: S
authors: Oh