Dislocation Conduction In Bi-Sb Topological Insulators

Previous theoretical works have predicted that when a specific condition is satisfied, dislocations in three-dimensional topological insulators form one-dimensional gapless states, which are topologically protected against disorder scattering. Here, the predicted dislocation conduction is experimentally investigated in Bi-Sb topological insulators. High-density dislocations with the Burgers vector satisfying the conductivity condition are introduced into Bi-Sb single crystals by plastic deformation. Conductivity measurements for deformed and undeformed samples and those for the deformed samples in different orientations show excess conductivity due to dislocation conduction. (C) 2017 Author(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).