Strong side of weak topological insulators

By Z. Ringel, Yaacov E. Kraus, A. Stern. 2011

167 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Three-dimensional topological insulators are classified into "strong" (STI) and "weak" (WTI) according to the nature of their surface states. While the surface states of the STI are topologically protected from localization, this does not hold for the WTI. In this work we show that the surface states of the WTI are actually protected from any random perturbation that does not break time-reversal symmetry, and does not close the bulk energy gap. Consequently, the conductivity of metallic surfaces in the clean system remains finite even in the presence of strong disorder of this type. In the weak disorder limit the surfaces are found to be perfect metals, and strong surface disorder only acts to push the metallic surfaces inwards. We find that the WTI differs from the STI primarily in its anisotropy, and that the anisotropy is not a sign of its weakness but rather of its richness.

Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Condensed Matter Physics, Materials Chemistry

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f7617905eafc7d470c2f0523d1fdc4ff47e3612c

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

1. J. Alicea
2. Liang Fu
3. Hsin Lin
4. Arun Bansil
5. N. Lindner
6. A. Stern
7. C. Nayak
8. P. Fendley

In Condensed Matter Physics

1. Liang Fu
2. J. Alicea
3. Hsin Lin
4. Arun Bansil
5. A. Stern
6. N. Lindner
7. Wenhui Duan
8. Y. Oreg

In Materials Chemistry

1. Liang Fu
2. Hsin Lin
3. Arun Bansil
4. Erez Berg
5. A. Stern
6. J. Alicea
7. P. Fendley
8. Wenhui Duan

Citations in the corpus

• Universal topological quantum computation from a superconductor/Abelian quantum Hall heterostructure (2013, background): “For instance, lattice defects can bind Majorana zero-modes [99], and the dispersing 1D band of hybridized Majorana modes can be stable if certain symmetries are present on average [101–104].”
• Topological crystalline insulators in the SnTe material class (2012, background): “[27] Ringel, Z.”