Emergence of quantum transport in SnTe films upon structural refinement
Abstract
Topological crystalline insulators are distinguished from the conventional Z2 topological insulators by crystalline symmetry protection of the surface states. Quantitative characterization of these states requires magneto-transport measurements from which the phase coherence length and number of independent coherent channels can be extracted. Here we report such measurements on textured thin films of SnTe grown on Bi2Te3 buffered c-plane sapphire (Al2O3) by pulsed laser ablation. A post deposition annealing protocol was implemented to control the crystallographic texture, which reveals improved crystallinity and enhanced epitaxial alignment along the [111] direction in films annealed at elevated temperatures. The higher carrier density and lower resistivity seen in films annealed at 100 oC are suggestive of Sn vacancies which act as native acceptor defects, while films annealed at 200 oC approach the 1:1 stoichiometry. The magnetoresistance of all samples at T < 10 K characterized by a cusp centered around zero-field is suggestive of weak antilocalization and interpreted in the framework of the Hikami-Larkin-Nagaoka theory in the strong spin-orbit coupling limit. At T > 20 K, the MR is small and positive, and deviates from conventional Kohler scaling. An approximate collapse of the MR curves between 50 and 250 K is obtained using an empirical temperature-dependent scaling factor, indicating that changes in the Hall-derived carrier density alone cannot account for the observed scaling behavior. These results demonstrate that post growth annealing strongly influences the interplay between stoichiometry, crystallinity, and coherent transport in SnTe thin films.
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BibTeX
@misc{sharma2026emergence,
title = {{Emergence of quantum transport in SnTe films upon structural refinement}},
author = {Shrinkhala Sharma and Rabindra Basnet and Thomas Parker and Afolabi Akinfaderin and Alexander Samokhvalov and Rajeswari Kolagani and Ramesh C. Budhani},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.14233},
eprint = {2610.14233},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.14233},
note = {CC0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Emergence of quantum transport in SnTe films upon structural refinement
AU - Shrinkhala Sharma
AU - Rabindra Basnet
AU - Thomas Parker
AU - Afolabi Akinfaderin
AU - Alexander Samokhvalov
AU - Rajeswari Kolagani
AU - Ramesh C. Budhani
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/16
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.14233
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.14233
AB - Topological crystalline insulators are distinguished from the conventional Z2 topological insulators by crystalline symmetry protection of the surface states. Quantitative characterization of these states requires magneto-transport measurements from which the phase coherence length and number of independent coherent channels can be extracted. Here we report such measurements on textured thin films of SnTe grown on Bi2Te3 buffered c-plane sapphire (Al2O3) by pulsed laser ablation. A post deposition annealing protocol was implemented to control the crystallographic texture, which reveals improved crystallinity and enhanced epitaxial alignment along the [111] direction in films annealed at elevated temperatures. The higher carrier density and lower resistivity seen in films annealed at 100 oC are suggestive of Sn vacancies which act as native acceptor defects, while films annealed at 200 oC approach the 1:1 stoichiometry. The magnetoresistance of all samples at T < 10 K characterized by a cusp centered around zero-field is suggestive of weak antilocalization and interpreted in the framework of the Hikami-Larkin-Nagaoka theory in the strong spin-orbit coupling limit. At T > 20 K, the MR is small and positive, and deviates from conventional Kohler scaling. An approximate collapse of the MR curves between 50 and 250 K is obtained using an empirical temperature-dependent scaling factor, indicating that changes in the Hall-derived carrier density alone cannot account for the observed scaling behavior. These results demonstrate that post growth annealing strongly influences the interplay between stoichiometry, crystallinity, and coherent transport in SnTe thin films.
ER -