Bulk metals with helical surface states

In the flurry of experiments looking for topological insulator materials, it has been recently discovered that some bulk metals very close to topological insulator electronic states support the same topological surface states that are the defining characteristic of the topological insulator. First observed in spin-polarized angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy ARPES in Sb D. Hsieh et al., Science 323, 919 2009 , the helical surface states in the metallic systems appear to be robust to at least mild disorder. We present here a theoretical investigation of the nature of these “helical metals”—bulk metals with helical surface states. We explore how the surface and bulk states can mix, in both clean and disordered systems. Using the Fano model, we discover that in a clean system, the helical surface states are not simply absorbed by hybridization with a nontopological parasitic metallic band. Instead, they are pushed away from overlapping in momentum and energy with the bulk states, leaving behind a finite-lifetime surface resonance in the bulk energy band. Furthermore, the hybridization may lead in some cases to multiplied surface-state bands, in all cases retaining the helical characteristic. Weak disorder leads to very similar effects—surface states are pushed away from the energy bandwidth of the bulk, leaving behind a finite-lifetime surface resonance in place of the original surface states.