We study the effects of temperature on the band structure of the Bi2Se3 family of topological insulators using first-principles methods. Increasing temperature drives these materials towards the normal state, with similar contributions from thermal expansion and from electron-phonon coupling. The band gap changes with temperature reach 0.3 eV at 600 K, of similar size to the changes caused by electron correlation. Our results suggest that temperature-induced topological phase transitions should be observable near critical points of other external parameters.
@article{arxiv.1608.00584,
title = {Temperature effects in the band structure of topological insulators},
author = {Bartomeu Monserrat and David Vanderbilt},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1608.00584},
year = {2016}
}