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Observation of charge dressing in Bi4Te3 topological insulator thin films: A terahertz and infrared spectroscopic study

Veronica Stopponi1,2, Johannes Schmidt3, Andrea Perucchi3, Gregor Mussler4, Abdur Rehman Jalil4, Alexander Grüneis5, Michele Zacchigna1, Stefano Lupi1,6, and Paola Di Pietro3

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Phys. Rev. B 114, 185102 – Published 2 September, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/6kv9-46kx

Abstract

Bi4Te3 has been first realized as an element of the adaptive series (Bi2)m(Bi2Te3)n—deriving from stacking metallic Bi and topological insulator Bi2Te3 blocks—and studied for its promising thermoelectric properties. Recently, Bi4Te3 has also been found as a dual topological insulator hosting a complex band structure with three Dirac cones in k space. Here we report measurements of the optical conductivity of five Bi4Te3 thin films with thickness varying from 11 to 32 nm. This extensive study, based on terahertz time-domain spectroscopy and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, provides a broadband optical conductivity. By employing a Kramers-Kronig constrained Drude-Lorentz model, the spectral contributions to the optical conductivity of each sample have been singled out. In contrast to an ideal topological insulator—with perfectly insulating bulk—in Bi4Te3 far-infrared and mid-infrared bands indicate the presence of localized massive carriers, which dope the bulk system, as also observed in chemically compensated single crystals of other bismuth-based topological insulators. In addition, the localized bulk charges strongly renormalize the electronic mass. The charge dressing enhances as the thickness increases, indicating a trivial metallic behavior of Bi4Te3 thin films. This study elucidates the inner relationship between the optical properties of a dual topological insulator like Bi4Te3 and its complex band structure, since the detection of the topological massless carriers by optical measurements is prevented by the occurrence of novel and unusual conductive properties.

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Phys. Rev. B 114, 185102– Published 2 September, 2026
  • Received 25 February 2026
  • Revised 11 June 2026
  • Accepted 16 July 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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