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Anomalous Finite Size Effects on Surface States in the Topological Insulator Bi$_2$Se$_3$

We study how the surface states in the strong topological insulator Bi$_2$Se$_3$ are influenced by finite size effects, and compare our results with those recently obtained for 2D topological insulator HgTe. We demonstrate two important distinctions: \textit{(i)} contrary to HgTe, the surface-states in Bi$_2$Se$_3$ display a remarkable robustness towards decreasing the width $L$ down to a few nm, thus ensuring that the topological surface states remain intact, and \textit{(ii)} the gapping due to the hybridization of the surface states features an oscillating exponential decay as a function of $L$ in Bi$_2$Se$_3$ in sharp contrast to HgTe. Our findings suggest that Bi$_2$Se$_3$ is suitable for nanoscale applications in quantum computing or spintronics. Also, we propose a way to experimentally detect both of the predicted effects.