Superlattice valley engineering for designer topological insulators
نویسندگان
چکیده
A topological insulator is a novel state of quantum matter, characterized by symmetry-protected Dirac interfacial states within its bulk gap. Tremendous effort has been invested into the search for topological insulators. To date, the discovery of topological insulators has been largely limited to natural crystalline solids. Therefore, it is highly desirable to tailor-make various topological states of matter by design, starting with but a few accessible materials or elements. Here, we establish that valley-dependent dimerization of Dirac surface states can be exploited to induce topological quantum phase transitions, in a binary superlattice bearing symmetry-unrelated interfacial Dirac states. This mechanism leads to a rich phase diagram and allows for rational design of strong topological insulators, weak topological insulators, and topological crystalline insulators. Our ab initio simulations further demonstrate this mechanism in [111] and [110] superlattices of calcium and tin tellurides. While our results reveal a remarkable phase diagram for the binary superlattice, the mechanism is a general route to design various topological states.
منابع مشابه
Topological Bose-Mott insulators in a one-dimensional optical superlattice.
We study topological properties of the Bose-Hubbard model with repulsive interactions in a one-dimensional optical superlattice. We find that the Mott insulator states of the single-component (two-component) Bose-Hubbard model under fractional fillings are topological insulators characterized by a nonzero charge (or spin) Chern number with nontrivial edge states. For ultracold atomic experiment...
متن کاملInterfacial Dirac cones from alternating topological invariant superlattice structures of Bi2Se3.
When the three-dimensional topological insulators Bi2Se3 and Bi2Te3 have an interface with vacuum, i.e., a surface, they show remarkable features such as topologically protected and spin-momentum locked surface states. However, for practical applications, one often requires multiple interfaces or channels rather than a single surface. Here, for the first time, we show that an interfacial and id...
متن کاملProbing topological protection using a designer surface plasmon structure
Topological photonic states, inspired by robust chiral edge states in topological insulators, have recently been demonstrated in a few photonic systems, including an array of coupled on-chip ring resonators at communication wavelengths. However, the intrinsic difference between electrons and photons determines that the 'topological protection' in time-reversal-invariant photonic systems does no...
متن کاملTopological spin and valley pumping in silicene
We propose to realize adiabatic topological spin and valley pumping by using silicene, subject to the modulation of an in-plane ac electric field with amplitude Ey and a vertical electric field consisting of an electrostatic component and an ac component with amplitudes and . By tuning and , topological valley pumping or spin-valley pumping can be achieved. The low-noise valley and spin current...
متن کامل