Effects of post-annealing on crystalline and transport properties of Bi₂Te₃ thin films*

A well-established method is highly desirable for growing topological insulator thin films with low carrier density on a wafer-level scale. Here, we present a simple, scalable method based on magnetron sputtering to obtain high-quality Bi2Te3 films with the carrier density down to 4.0 × 1013 cm−2. In contrast to the most-used method of high substrate temperature growth, we firstly sputtered Bi2Te3 thin films at room temperature and then applied post-annealing. It enables the growth of highly-oriented Bi2Te3 thin films with larger grain size and smoother interface. The results of electrical transport show that it has a lower carrier density as well as a larger coherent length (∼228 nm, 2 K). Our studies pave the way toward large-scale, cost-effective production of Bi2Te3 thin films to be integrated with other materials in wafer-level scale for electronic and spintronic applications.