Structural and electronic properties of Bi2Se3 topological insulator thin films grown by pulsed laser deposition

We report on epitaxial growth of Bi2Se3 topological insulator thin films by Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD). X-ray diffraction investigation confirms that Bi2Se3 with a single (001)-orientation can be obtained on several substrates in a narrow (i.e., 20 °C) range of deposition temperatures and at high deposition pressure (i.e., 0.1 mbar). However, only films grown on (001)-Al2O3 substrates show an almost-unique in-plane orientation. In-situ spin-resolved angular resolved photoemission spectroscopy experiments, performed at the NFFA-APE facility of IOM-CNR and Elettra (Trieste), show a single Dirac cone with the Dirac point at E B ∼ 0.38 eV located in the center of the Brillouin zone and the spin polarization of the topological surface states. These results demonstrate that the topological surface state can be obtained in PLD-grown Bi2Se3 thin films.