NMR study of topological insulator Bi2Te3 in a wide temperature range

Abstract

NMR studies of ¹²⁵Te in the topological insulator bismuth telluride Bi₂Te₃ in a wide temperature range from room temperature to 12.5 K are performed. The pulsed NMR spectrometer Bruker Avance 400 is applied. The NMR spectra are obtained for the powder from Bi2Te3 single crystal and monocrystalline plates with the orientations c || B and c ⊥ B. At room temperature, the spectra consist of two lines related to two nonequivalent positions of tellurium nuclei Te1 and Te2. The parameters of the NMR frequency shift tensor are found from the powder spectrum. The temperature dependences of the spectra for the powder and plates with the orientation c ⊥ B agree with each other. The line shift with decreasing temperature is explained by the reduction of the Knight shift. The thermal activation energy of charge carriers is estimated. The spectra for the plates with the orientation c || B demonstrate peculiar behavior below 91 K. The spin-lattice relaxation time for the powder and monocrystalline plates with both orientations at room temperature is measured.