Epitaxial growth of topological insulator $\beta$-Ag2Te thin films

Ayuki Takegawa; Kouya Imoto; Minoru Kawamura; Moeta Tsukamoto; Ryutaro Yoshimi

Epitaxial growth of topological insulator $\beta$-Ag2Te thin films

Materials Science 2026-03-17 v1

Authors: Ayuki Takegawa , Kouya Imoto , Minoru Kawamura , Moeta Tsukamoto , Ryutaro Yoshimi

Abstract

We report epitaxial growth of $\beta$ -Ag2Te thin films by molecular beam epitaxy. $\beta$ -Ag2Te, recently identified as a topological insulator, was grown by depositing Ag on InP substrate at room temperature followed by Te supply at elevated temperature. X-ray diffraction measurements and transmission electron microscopy analyses confirmed the (002) crystal orientation and the epitaxial atomic arrangement of $\beta$ -Ag2Te thin films. Electrical transport measurements revealed that the $\beta$ -Ag2Te thin film exhibits two-dimensional metallic conduction while the bulk remains insulating. The epitaxial $\beta$ -Ag2Te thin films obtained here provide a viable platform for investigating emergent phenomena arising from surface Dirac states and for designing heterojunction-based device structures.

Keywords

Epitaxial Growth Topological Insulator Beta-Ag2Te Thin Films Molecular Beam Epitaxy Two-Dimensional Metallic Conduction Surface Dirac States

Cite

@article{arxiv.2603.15406,
  title  = {Epitaxial growth of topological insulator $\beta$-Ag2Te thin films},
  author = {Ayuki Takegawa and Kouya Imoto and Minoru Kawamura and Moeta Tsukamoto and Ryutaro Yoshimi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.15406},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

19 pages, 4 figures

Epitaxial growth of topological insulator $\beta$-Ag2Te thin films

Abstract

Keywords

Cite

Comments

Related papers