No Arabic abstract
Depositing Au on a graphene derivate, which involves substituting four C atoms with three N atoms in a $3times 3$ cell graphene, we realized a topological insulator of the Kane-Mele model with a gap of 50~meV surrounding the Dirac point of graphene. In this material, we observed an anomalous band inversion (BI) protected by the symmetry with character $e$ of group C$_{rm 3V}$. The symmetry constrains two $e$ bands with mirror-symmetry combination (MSC) and mirror-antisymmetry combination (MAC) of Au and N orbitals degenerate at $Gamma$, whereas the interaction of $pi^*$ of graphene on the $e$-MAC band tends to lift this degenerate, resulting in that the $pi^*$ and $e$-MAC band exchange their orbital components near $Gamma$, causing thus a discontinued BI.
We study surface states of topological crystalline insulators and superconductors protected by inversion symmetry. These fall into the category of higher-order topological insulators and superconductors which possess surface states that propagate along one-dimensional curves (hinges) or are localized at some points (corners) on the surface. We show that the surface states of higher-order topological insulators and superconductors can be thought of as globally irremovable topological defects and provide a complete classification of these inversion-protected phases in any spatial dimension for the ten symmetry classes by means of a layer construction. Furthermore, we discuss possible physical realizations of such states starting with a time-reversal invariant topological insulator (class AII) in three dimensions or a time-reversal invariant topological superconductor (class DIII) in two or three dimensions. The former can be used to build a three-dimensional second-order topological insulator which exhibits one-dimensional chiral or helical modes propagating along opposite edges, whereas the latter enables the construction of three-dimensional third-order or two-dimensional second-order topological superconductors hosting Majorana zero modes localized to two opposite corners. Being protected by inversion, such states are not pinned to a specific pair of edges or corners thus offering the possibility of controlling their location by applying inversion-symmetric perturbations such as magnetic field.
The entanglement Chern number, the Chern number for the entanglement Hamiltonian, is used to charac- terize the Kane-Mele model, which is a typical model of the quantum spin Hall phase with the time reversal symmetry. We first obtain the global phase diagram of the Kane-Mele model in terms of the entanglement spin Chern number, which is defined by using a spin subspace as a subspace to be traced out in preparing the entanglement Hamiltonian. We further demonstrate the effectiveness of the entanglement Chern number without the time reversal symmetry and spin conservation by extending the Kane-Mele model to include the Zeeman term. The numerical results confirm that the sum of the entanglement spin Chern number equals to the Chern number.
We investigate the edge state of a two-dimensional topological insulator based on the Kane-Mele model. Using complex wave numbers of the Bloch wave function, we derive an analytical expression for the edge state localized near the edge of a semi-infinite honeycomb lattice with a straight edge. For the comparison of the edge type effects, two types of the edges are considered in this calculation; one is a zigzag edge and the other is an armchair edge. The complex wave numbers and the boundary condition give the analytic equations for the energies and the wave functions of the edge states. The numerical solutions of the equations reveal the intriguing spatial behaviors of the edge state. We define an edge-state width for analyzing the spatial variation of the edge-state wave function. Our results show that the edge-state width can be easily controlled by a couple of parameters such as the spin-orbit coupling and the sublattice potential. The parameter dependences of the edge-state width show substantial differences depending on the edge types. These demonstrate that, even if the edge states are protected by the topological property of the bulk, their detailed properties are still discriminated by their edges. This edge dependence can be crucial in manufacturing small-sized devices since the length scale of the edge state is highly subject to the edges.
We investigate the magnetic response in the quantum spin Hall phase of the layered Kane-Mele model with Hubbard interaction, and argue a condition to obtain the Meissner effect. The effect of Rashba spin orbit coupling is also discussed.
We study free, capped and encapsulated bilayer jacutingaite Pt$_2$HgSe$_3$ from first principles. While the free standing bilayer is a large gap trivial insulator, we find that the encapsulated structure has a small trivial gap due to the competition between sublattice symmetry breaking and sublattice-dependent next-nearest-neighbor hopping. Upon the application of a small perpendicular electric field, the encapsulated bilayer undergoes a topological transition towards a quantum spin Hall insulator. We find that this topological transition can be qualitatively understood by modeling the two layers as uncoupled and described by an imbalanced Kane-Mele model that takes into account the sublattice imbalance and the corresponding inversion-symmetry breaking in each layer. Within this picture, bilayer jacutingaite undergoes a transition from a 0+0 state, where each layer is trivial, to a 0+1 state, where an unusual topological state relying on Rashba-like spin orbit coupling emerges in only one of the layers.