Topological Crystalline Insulators in the SnTe Material Class
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Fu_Topological crystalline.pdf
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1.35 MB
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Author(s)
Hsieh, Timothy Hwa-wei
Lin, Hsin
Lui, Junwei
Duan, Wenhui
Bansil, Arun
Fu, Liang
Date Issued
July 2012
Journal
Nature Communications
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
Citation
Hsieh, Timothy H. et al. “Topological Crystalline Insulators in the SnTe Material Class.” Nature Communications 3 (2012): 982. Web.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Topological crystalline insulators are new states of matter in which the topological nature of electronic structures arises from crystal symmetries. Here we predict the first material realization of topological crystalline insulator in the semiconductor SnTe by identifying its non-zero topological index. We predict that as a manifestation of this non-trivial topology, SnTe has metallic surface states with an even number of Dirac cones on high-symmetry crystal surfaces such as {001}, {110} and {111}. These surface states form a new type of high-mobility chiral electron gas, which is robust against disorder and topologically protected by reflection symmetry of the crystal with respect to {110} mirror plane. Breaking this mirror symmetry via elastic strain engineering or applying an in-plane magnetic field can open up a continuously tunable band gap on the surface, which may lead to wide-ranging applications in thermoelectrics, infra-red detection and tunable electronics. Closely related semiconductors PbTe and PbSe also become topological crystalline insulators after band inversion by pressure, strain and alloying.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
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Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms1969
