Detection of Berry's phase in a Bulk Rashba semiconductor.
basic_science · Level V
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- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 24357313.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1126/science.1242247.
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Abstract
The motion of electrons in a solid has a profound effect on its topological properties and may result in a nonzero Berry's phase, a geometric quantum phase encoded in the system's electronic wave function. Despite its ubiquity, there are few experimental observations of Berry's phase of bulk states. Here, we report detection of a nontrivial π Berry's phase in the bulk Rashba semiconductor BiTeI via analysis of the Shubnikov-de Haas (SdH) effect. The extremely large Rashba splitting in this material enables the separation of SdH oscillations, stemming from the spin-split inner and outer Fermi surfaces. For both Fermi surfaces, we observe a systematic π-phase shift in SdH oscillations, consistent with the theoretically predicted nontrivial π Berry's phase in Rashba systems.