2008/12/09 by Haijun Zhang, Chao‐Xing Liu, Zhang, Haijun +8
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Diamond and Carbon-based Materials Research #FOS: Physical sciences #Graphene research and applications #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) #Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) #Topological Materials and Phenomena
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.0812.1622
openalex publication_date 2008/12/09 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Topological insulators are new states of quantum matter with surface states protected by the time-reversal symmetry. In this work, we perform first-principle electronic structure calculations for Sb2Te3, Sb2Se3, Bi2Te3 and Bi2Se3 crystals. Our calculations predict that Sb2Te3, Bi2Te3 and Bi2Se3 are topological insulators, while Sb2Se3 is not. In particular, Bi2Se3 has a topologically non-trivial energy gap of 0.3 eV, suitable for room temperature applications. We present a simple and unified continuum model which captures the salient topological features of this class of materials. These topological insulators have robust surface states consisting of a single Dirac cone at the Γ point.