Hexagonal warping on optical conductivity of surface states in Topological Insulator Bi_{2}Te_{3}

Abstract

ARPES studies of the protected surface states in the Topological Insulator $% Bi_{2}Te_{3}$ have revealed the existence of an important hexagonal warping term in its electronic band structure. This term distorts the shape of the Dirac cone from a circle at low energies to a snowflake shape at higher energies. We show that this implies important modifications of the interband optical transitions which no longer provide a constant universal background as seen in graphene. Rather the conductivity shows a quasilinear increase with a slightly concave upward bending as energy is increased. Its slope increases with increasing magnitude of the hexagonal distortion as does the magnitude of the jump at the interband onset. The energy dependence of the density of states is also modified and deviates downward from linear with increasing energy.