High-mobility surface states and conductance fluctuations in Bismuth Telluro-Sulfide topological insulator devices

Since the experimental discovery of three-dimensional topological insulators (TI), (Bi,Sb)$_2$(Se,Te)$_3$ binary compounds are the principal material systems to explore TI physics. However, transport experiments studying surface-states are complicated by parallel bulk conductivity contribution, which is expected to improve for ternary and quaternary chalcogenide compounds of Bi and Sb. A promising alternative is the Sulfur-based tetradymite with an ideal formula of Bi$_2$Te$_2$S, which has received little attention. We present van der Waals epitaxial growth and magnetotransport in Bismuth Telluro-Sulfide (BTS) crystalline nanosheets. Gating-enhanced Weak-antilocalization (WAL) and Universal Conductance Fluctuations (UCF) are observed in BTS devices. Empirical modeling of the data shows the existence of two-dimensional surface transport. A three-channel Hall conductivity model is proposed, which is utilized in conjunction with an extended-WAL analysis, showing the presence of a high-mobility surface component and indication for separation of transport channels in BTS devices. Our growth and comprehensive transport experiments demonstrate BTS as a promising candidate TI material.