Topological insulators (TIs) emerge as one of the most fascinating and amazing material in physics and electronics. TIs intrinsically possess both gapless conducting surface and insulating internal properties, instead of being only one property such as conducting, semiconducting, and insulating. The conducting surface state of TIs is the consequence of band inversion induced by strong spin-orbit coupling. Combined with broken inversion symmetry, the surface electronic band structure consists of spin helical Dirac cone, which allows spin of carriers governed by the direction of its momentum, and prohibits backscattering of the carriers. It is called by topological surface states (TSS). In this paper, we investigated the TIs materials and their unique properties and denoted the fabrication method of TIs such as deposition and exfoliation techniques. Since it is hard to observe the TSS, we introduced several specialized analysis tools such as angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, spin-momentum locking, and weak antilocalization. Finally, we reviewed the various fields to utilize the unique properties of TIs and summarized research trends of their applications.
