Atom-surface van der Waals potentials of topological insulators and semimetals from scattering measurements

Abstract

The phenomenology of resonant scattering has been known since the earliest experiments upon scattering of atomic beams from surfaces and is a means of obtaining experimental information about the fundamentals of weak adsorption systems in the van der Waals regime. We provide an overview of the experimental approach based on new experimental data for the He–Sb₂Te₃(111) system, followed by a comparative overview and perspective of recent results for topological semimetal and insulator surfaces. Moreover, we shortly discuss the perspectives of calculating helium–surface interaction potentials from ab initio calculations. Our perspective demonstrates that atom-surface scattering provides direct experimental information about the atom-surface interaction in the weak physisorption regime and can also be used to determine the lifetime and mean free path of the trapped atom. We further discuss the effects of elastic and inelastic scattering on the linewidth and lifetime of the trapped He atom with an outlook on future developments and applications.