A broadband microwave Corbino spectrometer at 3^3He temperatures and high magnetic fields

We present the technical details of a broadband microwave spectrometer for measuring the complex conductance of thin films covering the range from 50 MHz up to 16 GHz in the temperature range 300 mK to 6 K and at applied magnetic fields up to 8 Tesla. We measure the complex reflection from a sample terminating a coaxial transmission line and calibrate the signals with three standards with known reflection coefficients. Thermal isolation of the heat load from the inner conductor is accomplished by including a section of NbTi superconducting cable (transition temperature around 8 $-$ 9 K) and hermetic seal glass bead adapters. This enables us to stabilize the base temperature of the sample stage at 300 mK. However, the inclusion of this superconducting cable complicates the calibration procedure. We document the effects of the superconducting cable on our calibration procedure and the effects of applied magnetic fields and how we control the temperature with great repeatability for each measurement. We have successfully extracted reliable data in this frequency, temperature and field range for thin superconducting films and highly resistive graphene samples

Quantized Faraday and Kerr rotation and axion electrodynamics of a 3D topological insulator

Topological insulators have been proposed to be best characterized as bulk magnetoelectric materials that show response functions quantized in terms of fundamental physical constants. Here we lower the chemical potential of three-dimensional (3D) Bi$_2$Se$_3$ films to $\sim$ 30 meV above the Dirac point, and probe their low-energy electrodynamic response in the presence of magnetic fields with high-precision time-domain terahertz polarimetry. For fields higher than 5 T, we observed quantized Faraday and Kerr rotations, whereas the DC transport is still semi-classical. A non-trivial Berry phase offset to these values gives evidence for axion electrodynamics and the topological magnetoelectric effect. The time structure used in these measurements allows a direct measure of the fine structure constant based on a topological invariant of a solid-state system.Comment: A shortened version has been published in Science. Discussion on AC quantum Hall effect without involving edge states is adde

Developments in THz range ellipsometry

Ellipsometry is a technique whereby the measurement of the two orthogonal polarization components of light reflected at glancing incidence allows a characterization of the optical properties of a material at a particular frequency. Importantly, it obviates the need for measurement against a standard reference sample, and so can provide reliable spectroscopic information even when surface morphology is unknown, of marginal quality and/or a reference is unavailable. Although a standard technique in the visible range, it has not been widely applied in the Terahertz (THz) spectral range despite its potential utility. This is largely because of the technical difficulties that these frequencies present. This review details recent progress in the implementation of THz range ellipsometry. We discuss a variety of configurations including various kinds of laboratory and facility based sources using both continuous wave and pulsed spectroscopic methods. We discuss the general problems encountered when trying to import the methodologies of visible range ellipsometry to the THz range and give examples of where the technique has been successful thus far.Comment: Review article to appear in `Journal of Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz Waves'; 27 pages, 17 figure