Phonon-induced topological insulation

2014/03/16 by Kush Saha, Ion Garate · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.str-el #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.mtrl-sci

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevb.89.205103

published as Phys. Rev. B 89, 205103 (2014) · 15 pages, 8 figures

arxiv created 2014/03/16 · arxiv updated 2014/05/09

Abstract

We develop an approximate theory of phonon-induced topological insulation in Dirac materials. In the weak coupling regime, long wavelength phonons may favor topological phases in Dirac insulators with direct and narrow bandgaps. This phenomenon originates from electron-phonon matrix elements, which change qualitatively under a band inversion. A similar mechanism applies to weak Coulomb interactions and spin-independent disorder; however, the influence of these on band topology is largely independent of temperature. As applications of the theory, we evaluate the temperature-dependence of the critical thickness and the critical stoichiometric ratio for the topological transition in CdTe/HgTe quantum wells and in BiTl(S_1-δSe_δ)₂, respectively.

Cited by

• Emergent topological phases and coexistence of gapless and spectral-localized Floquet quantum spin Hall states via electron-phonon interaction