2010/10/11 by Haijun Zhang, Hai-Jun Zhang, Stanislav Chadov +7 · 105 citations
Materials Science · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #Combinatorics #Composite material #Computer science #Condensed matter physics #Graphene research and applications #Honeycomb #Honeycomb structure #Lattice (music) #Materials science #Mathematics #Physics #Ternary operation #Theoretical physics #Topological Materials and Phenomena #Topological insulator #Topology (electrical circuits) #cond-mat.mtrl-sci
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.106.156402
published in Physical Review Letters 106(15), 156402 (American Physical Society) · 4 pages + 1 page supplemental
arxiv created 2010/10/11 · openalex publication_date 2011/04/11 · arxiv updated 2011/04/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We investigate a new class of ternary materials such as LiAuSe and KHgSb with a honeycomb structure in Au-Se and Hg-Sb layers. We demonstrate the band inversion in these materials similar to HgTe, which is a strong precondition for existence of the topological surface states. In contrast with graphene, these materials exhibit strong spin-orbit coupling and a small direct band gap at the Γ point. Since these materials are centrosymmetric, it is straightforward to determine the parity of their wave functions, and hence their topological character. Surprisingly, the compound with strong spin-orbit coupling (KHgSb) is trivial, whereas LiAuSe is found to be a topological insulator.