Generally, stacking two quantum spin Hall insulators gives rise to a trivial insulator. Here, based on first-principles electronic structure calculations, we confirm that monolayer TaIrTe4 is a quantum spin Hall insulator and remarkably find that bilayer TaIrTe4 is still a quantum spin Hall insulator. Theoretical analysis indicates that the covalent-like interlayer interaction in combination with the small bandgap at time-reversal invariant Γ point results in new band inversion in bilayer TaIrTe4, namely, the emergence of quantum spin Hall phase. Meanwhile, a topological phase transition can be observed by increasing the interlayer distance in bilayer TaIrTe4. Considering that bulk TaIrTe4 is a type-II Weyl semimetal, layered TaIrTe4 thus provides an ideal platform to realize different topological phases at different dimensions.
@article{arxiv.1910.14307,
title = {Quantum spin Hall effect in monolayer and bilayer TaIrTe$_{4}$},
author = {Peng-Jie Guo and Xiao-Qin Lu and Wei Ji and Kai Liu and Zhong-Yi Lu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1910.14307},
year = {2020}
}