Enhanced transport length of spin-helical Dirac fermions in disordered 3D topological insulators
Abstract
The transport length ltr and the mean free path le are experimentally determined for bulk and surface states in a Bi2Se3 nanoribbon by quantum transport and transconductance measurements. We show that the anisotropic scattering of spin-helical Dirac fermions results in a strong enhancement of ltr, which confirms theoretical predictions Culcer2010. Despite strong disorder (le≈30~nm), our result further points to the long-range nature of the scattering potential, giving a large ratio ltr/le≈8 that is likely limited by a finite bulk/surface coupling. This suggests that the spin-flip length could reach the micron size in disordered 3D topological insulator nanostructures with a reduced bulk doping, even if due to charge compensation.
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