Related papers: Topological Dislocation Response in Elementary Sem…
Topological insulators are materials with a bulk excitation gap generated by the spin orbit interaction, and which are different from conventional insulators. This distinction is characterized by Z_2 topological invariants, which…
Lattices with a basis can host crystallographic defects which share the same topological charge (e.g.~the Burgers vector $\vec b$ of a dislocation) but differ in their microscopic structure of the core. We demonstrate that in insulators…
The optical response of two-dimensional (2D) materials has been customarily calculated ab initio using plane waves and without separating the most important orbitals contributions. In the family of transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDC)…
One of the defining properties of the conventional three-dimensional ("$\mathbb{Z}_2$-", or "spin-orbit"-) topological insulator is its characteristic magnetoelectric effect, as described by axion electrodynamics. In this paper, we discuss…
Topological classification of quantum solids often (if not always) groups all trivial atomic or normal insulators (NIs) into the same featureless family. As we argue here, this is not necessarily the case always. In particular, when the…
The dielectric response of materials underpins electronics and photonics. Established semiconductor materials have a narrow range of dielectric susceptibility, with low-frequency values on the order of 10. Strong and variable dielectric…
Topological semimetals are a new class of metallic materials, which exist at band fillings that ordinarily correspond to insulators or compensated accidental semimetals with zero Luttinger volume. Their metallicity is a result of nontrivial…
Nonlinear optical responses are often used as a probe for studying electronic properties of materials. For topological materials, studies so far focused on the photogalvanic electric current, which requires breaking inversion symmetry. In…
We have recently identified a protected topological semimetal in graphene which presents a zero-energy edge mode robust to disorder and interactions. Here, we address the characteristics of this semimetal and show that the $\mathbb{Z}$…
Dislocations are ubiquitous in three-dimensional solid-state materials. The interplay of such real space topology with the emergent band topology defined in reciprocal space gives rise to gapless helical modes bound to the line defects.…
Hexagonal SiGe is a promising material for combining electronic and photonic technologies. In this work, the energetic, structural, elastic and electronic properties of the hexagonal polytypes (2$H$, 4$H$ and 6$H$) of silicon and germanium…
Topological phases are characterised by a topological invariant that remains unchanged by deformations in the Hamiltonian. Materials exhibiting topological phases include topological insulators, superconductors exhibiting strong spin-orbit…
In this work we consider whether nonsymmorphic symmetries such as a glide plane can protect the existence of topological crystalline insulators and superconductors in three dimensions. In analogy to time-reversal symmetric insulators, we…
Topological semimetals, such as Dirac, Weyl, or line-node semimetals, are gapless states of matter characterized by their nodal band structures and surface states. In this work, we consider layered (topologically trivial) insulating systems…
Silicon and germanium are the well-known materials used to manufacture electronic devices for the integrated circuits but they themselves are not considered as promising options for interconnecting the devices due to their semiconducting…
Compared to time-reversal symmetry-protected Z2 topological insulators and Dirac/Weyl semimetals, there are significantly fewer candidates for topological crystalline insulators. SrAg4Sb2 is predicted to exhibit topological crystalline…
Basal slip acts as a secondary deformation mode in hexagonal close-packed titanium and becomes one of the primary mechanisms in titanium alloyed with simple metals. As these solute elements also lead to a pronounced reduction of the energy…
In a three-dimensional strong topological insulator, gapless helical surface states appear everywhere on its surface. In the presence of a screw dislocation, gapless helical modes also appear in the vicinity of the corresponding dislocation…
A central problem in the deployment of quantum technologies is the realization of robust architectures for quantum interconnects. We propose to engineer interconnects in semiconductors and insulators by patterning spin qubits at…
From first-principles calculations, we predict that transition metal (TM) atom doped silicon nanowires have a half-metallic ground state. They are insulators for one spin-direction, but show metallic properties for the opposite spin…