scholarly journals Amorphous topological phases protected by continuous rotation symmetry

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Helene Spring ◽  
Anton Akhmerov ◽  
Daniel Varjas

Protection of topological surface states by reflection symmetry breaks down when the boundary of the sample is misaligned with one of the high symmetry planes of the crystal. We demonstrate that this limitation is removed in amorphous topological materials, where the Hamiltonian is invariant on average under reflection over any axis due to continuous rotation symmetry. We show that the edge remains protected from localization in the topological phase, and the local disorder caused by the amorphous structure results in critical scaling of the transport in the system. In order to classify such phases we perform a systematic search over all the possible symmetry classes in two dimensions and construct the example models realizing each of the proposed topological phases. Finally, we compute the topological invariant of these phases as an integral along a meridian of the spherical Brillouin zone of an amorphous Hamiltonian.

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kyungchan Lee ◽  
Gunnar F. Lange ◽  
Lin-Lin Wang ◽  
Brinda Kuthanazhi ◽  
Thaís V. Trevisan ◽  
...  

AbstractTime reversal symmetric (TRS) invariant topological insulators (TIs) fullfil a paradigmatic role in the field of topological materials, standing at the origin of its development. Apart from TRS protected strong TIs, it was realized early on that more confounding weak topological insulators (WTI) exist. WTIs depend on translational symmetry and exhibit topological surface states only in certain directions making it significantly more difficult to match the experimental success of strong TIs. We here report on the discovery of a WTI state in RhBi2 that belongs to the optimal space group P$$\bar{1}$$ 1 ¯ , which is the only space group where symmetry indicated eigenvalues enumerate all possible invariants due to absence of additional constraining crystalline symmetries. Our ARPES, DFT calculations, and effective model reveal topological surface states with saddle points that are located in the vicinity of a Dirac point resulting in a van Hove singularity (VHS) along the (100) direction close to the Fermi energy (EF). Due to the combination of exotic features, this material offers great potential as a material platform for novel quantum effects.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Max Geier ◽  
Ion Cosma Fulga ◽  
Alexander Lau

We study a link between the ground-state topology and the topology of the lattice via the presence of anomalous states at disclinations -- topological lattice defects that violate a rotation symmetry only locally. We first show the existence of anomalous disclination states, such as Majorana zero-modes or helical electronic states, in second-order topological phases by means of Volterra processes. Using the framework of topological crystals to construct d-dimensional crystalline topological phases with rotation and translation symmetry, we then identify all contributions to (d-2)-dimensional anomalous disclination states from weak and first-order topological phases. We perform this procedure for all Cartan symmetry classes of topological insulators and superconductors in two and three dimensions and determine whether the correspondence between bulk topology, boundary signatures, and disclination anomaly is unique.


2021 ◽  
pp. 2008411
Author(s):  
Jinjun Ding ◽  
Chuanpu Liu ◽  
Yuejie Zhang ◽  
Vijaysankar Kalappattil ◽  
Rui Yu ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 103 (23) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rafael González-Hernández ◽  
Erick Tuiran ◽  
Bernardo Uribe

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (15) ◽  
pp. 154001
Author(s):  
Debarghya Mallick ◽  
Shoubhik Mandal ◽  
R. Ganesan ◽  
P. S. Anil Kumar

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew J. Gilbert

AbstractWithin the broad and deep field of topological materials, there are an ever-increasing number of materials that harbor topological phases. While condensed matter physics continues to probe the exotic physical properties resulting from the existence of topological phases in new materials, there exists a suite of “well-known” topological materials in which the physical properties are well-characterized, such as Bi2Se3 and Bi2Te3. In this context, it is then appropriate to ask if the unique properties of well-explored topological materials may have a role to play in applications that form the basis of a new paradigm in information processing devices and architectures. To accomplish such a transition from physical novelty to application based material, the potential of topological materials must be disseminated beyond the reach of condensed matter to engender interest in diverse areas such as: electrical engineering, materials science, and applied physics. Accordingly, in this review, we assess the state of current electronic device applications and contemplate the future prospects of topological materials from an applied perspective. More specifically, we will review the application of topological materials to the general areas of electronic and magnetic device technologies with the goal of elucidating the potential utility of well-characterized topological materials in future information processing applications.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shama ◽  
R. K. Gopal ◽  
Goutam Sheet ◽  
Yogesh Singh

AbstractPd$$_{3}$$ 3 Bi$$_{2}$$ 2 S$$_{2}$$ 2 (PBS) is a recently proposed topological semimetal candidate. However, evidence for topological surface states have not yet been revealed in transport measurements due to the large mobility of bulk carriers. We report the growth and magneto-transport studies of PBS thin films where the mobility of the bulk carriers is reduced by two orders of magnitude, revealing for the first time, contributions from the 2-dimensional (2D) topological surface states in the observation of the 2D weak anti-localization (WAL) effect in magnetic field and angle dependent conductivity measurements. The magnetotransport data is analysed within the 2D Hikami-Larkin-Nagaoka (HLN) theory. The analysis suggests that multiple conduction channels contribute to the transport. It is also found that the temperature dependence of the dephasing length can’t be explained only by electron-electron scattering and that electron-phonon scattering also contributes to the phase relaxation mechanism in PBS films.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vishal Bhardwaj ◽  
Anupam Bhattacharya ◽  
Shivangi Srivastava ◽  
Vladimir V. Khovaylo ◽  
Jhuma Sannigrahi ◽  
...  

AbstractHalf-Heusler compounds exhibit a remarkable variety of emergent properties such as heavy-fermion behaviour, unconventional superconductivity and magnetism. Several of these compounds have been predicted to host topologically non-trivial electronic structures. Remarkably, recent theoretical studies have indicated the possibility to induce non-trivial topological surface states in an otherwise trivial half-Heusler system by strain engineering. Here, using magneto-transport measurements and first principles DFT-based simulations, we demonstrate topological surface states on strained [110] oriented thin films of YPdBi grown on (100) MgO. These topological surface states arise in an otherwise trivial semi-metal purely driven by strain. Furthermore, we observe the onset of superconductivity in these strained films highlighting the possibility of engineering a topological superconducting state. Our results demonstrate the critical role played by strain in engineering novel topological states in thin film systems for developing next-generation spintronic devices.


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