Selective area growth of Bi2Te3 and Sb2Te3 topological insulator thin films

•Selective growth of Bi2Te3 and Sb2Te3 TI films on Si mesas by MBE.•Growth of Bi2Te3 and Sb2Te3 on SiO2 valleys is fully suppressed.•Weak antilocalization of TI films selectively grown on Si Hall bars.

The intrinsic bulk behavior of topological insulators (TI) is a key issue for their employment in future device applications. State of the art TIs predominantly suffer from large bulk charge carrier concentrations that mask their extraordinary surface states. In this paper we present the selective area growth of Bi2Te3 and Sb2Te3 TI thin films on prestructured Si(111) Si on insulator (SOI) substrates, paving the way to high quality TI nanostructures in which access to surface states is enhanced. Therefore high quality Bi2Te3 and Sb2Te3 thin films were deposited by means of solid source molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) and subsequently investigated by energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDX). To investigate the transport properties of the selectively grown thin films, magnetotransport measurements were performed at low temperatures. Nucleation in the SiO2 valleys next to the prepatterned Si(111) mesa structures was not observed. The structural and morphological qualities of crystals deposited on untreated Si(111) SOI wafers are completely preserved by employing the selective area growth on prepatterned substrates. The transport characteristics of the selectively-grown TI systems are comparable to those of the analogous postpatterned films.