声学蜂窝结构中的拓扑角态

高阶拓扑绝缘体是近年来发现的一类具有特殊拓扑相的新型拓扑绝缘体,目前已在光学、声学等多种经典波系统中实现.本文采用数值模拟方法研究了一种二维声学蜂窝结构,通过调节胞内和胞间耦合波导管,使体能带发生反转诱导拓扑相变,进而利用拓扑相构建出声学二阶拓扑绝缘体.蜂窝结构的拓扑性质可以用量子化的四极矩Q_ij表征,当Q_ij=0时,系统是平庸的;而当Q_ij=1/2时,系统是拓扑的.基于该蜂窝结构,分别研究了六边形和三角形结构的声学高阶态,在两种构型的蜂窝结构中均观测到了孤立的零维角态,研究结果表明只有存在钝角的六边形结构对缺陷具有鲁棒性,受拓扑保护.本文的拓扑角态丰富了高阶拓扑绝缘体的研究,同时可为紧凑声学系统中的鲁棒限制声提供一条新途径.     

Topological order parameters for interacting topological insulators

We propose a topological order parameter for interacting topological insulators, expressed in terms of the full Green's functions of the interacting system. We show that it is exactly quantized for a time-reversal invariant topological insulator, and it can be experimentally measured through the topological magneto-electric effect. This topological order parameter can be applied to both interacting and disordered systems, and used for determining their phase diagrams.     

Quantum Anomalous Hall Multilayers Grown by Molecular Beam Epitaxy

Quantum anomalous Hall(QAH) effect is a quantum Hall effect that occurs without the need of external magnetic field. A system composed of multiple parallel QAH layers is an effective high Chern number QAH insulator and the key to the applications of the dissipationless chiral edge channels in low energy consumption electronics. Such a QAH multilayer can also be engineered into other exotic topological phases such as a magnetic Weyl semimetal with only one pair of Weyl points. This work reports the first experimental realization of QAH multilayers in the superlattices composed of magnetically doped(Bi,Sb)_2Te_3 topological insulator and Cd Se normal insulator layers grown by molecular beam epitaxy. The obtained multilayer samples show quantized Hall resistance h/N_e~2, where h is Planck's constant, e is the elementary charge and N is the number of the magnetic topological insulator layers, resembling a high Chern number QAH insulator. The QAH multilayers provide an excellent platform to study various topological states of matter.     

Many-body generalization of the Z2 topological invariant for the quantum spin Hall effect

We propose a many-body generalization of the Z2 topological invariant for the quantum spin Hall insulator, which does not rely on single-particle band structures. The invariant is derived as a topological obstruction that distinguishes topologically distinct many-body ground states on a torus. It is also expressed as a Wilson loop of the SU(2) Berry gauge field, which is quantized due to time-reversal symmetry.     

二维拓扑绝缘体退相干效应研究

拓扑绝缘体是当前凝聚态物理研究的热点.退相干效应对该体系的影响的研究不仅有重要的理论意义,而且也是实现未来量子器件的不可或缺的前期工作.文章作者从理论上研究了退相干对二维拓扑绝缘体特别是量子自旋霍尔效应的影响.研究结果表明,作为量子自旋霍尔效应的标志的量子化纵向电阻平台对不破坏自旋记忆的退相干效应(普通退相干)不敏感,但却对破坏自旋记忆的退相干效应(自旋退相干)非常敏感.因此,该量子化平台只能在尺寸小于自旋退相干长度的介观样品中存在,从而解释了量子自旋霍尔效应实验中所观测到的结果(见Science,2007,318:766).同时,文章作者还定义了一个新的物理量,即自旋霍尔电阻,并发现该自旋霍尔电阻也有量子化平台.特别是该量子化平台对两种类型的退相干都不敏感.这说明在宏观样品中也能观测到自旋霍尔电阻的量子化平台,因此更能全面地反映量子自旋霍尔效应的拓扑特性.     

Axion response in gapless systems

The strong topological insulator in 3D is expected to realize a quantized magnetoelectric response, the so-called axion response. However, many of the materials predicted to be topological insulators have turned out to be metallic, with bulk Fermi surfaces. Following the result of Bergman and Refael [Phys. Rev. B 82, 195417 (2010)] that the surface states of the topological insulator persist even when the band structure gap is closed, we explore the fate of the magnetoelectric response in such systems. We find that a nonquantized magnetoelectric coupling remains once a bulk Fermi surface opens. More generally, we find higher-dimensional analogs of the intrinsic anomalous Hall effect for all Chern forms-quantized transport coefficients in the gapped case become nonquantized when the gap is closed. In particular, the nonquantized magnetoelectric response in 3D descends from the intrinsic anomalous Hall effect analog in 4D.     

Quantum Hall effect from the topological surface states of strained bulk HgTe

We report transport studies on a three-dimensional, 70-nm-thick HgTe layer, which is strained by epitaxial growth on a CdTe substrate. The strain induces a band gap in the otherwise semimetallic HgTe, which thus becomes a three-dimensional topological insulator. Contributions from residual bulk carriers to the transport properties of the gapped HgTe layer are negligible at mK temperatures. As a result, the sample exhibits a quantized Hall effect that results from the 2D single cone Dirac-like topological surface states.     

Topological response theory of doped topological insulators

We generalize the topological response theory of three-dimensional topological insulators (TI) to metallic systems-specifically, doped TI with finite bulk carrier density and a time-reversal symmetry breaking field near the surface. We show that there is an inhomogeneity-induced Berry phase contribution to the surface Hall conductivity that is completely determined by the occupied states and is independent of other details such as band dispersion and impurities. In the limit of zero bulk carrier density, this intrinsic surface Hall conductivity reduces to the half-integer quantized surface Hall conductivity of TI. Based on our theory we predict the behavior of the surface Hall conductivity for a doped topological insulator with a top gate, which can be directly compared with experiments.     

Topological phases in Bi/Sb planar and buckled honeycomb monolayers

We investigate topological phases in two-dimensional Bi/Sb honeycomb crystals considering planar and buckled structures, both freestanding and deposited on a substrate. We use the multi-orbital tight-binding model and compare results with density functional theory calculations. We distinguish topological phases by calculating topological invariants, analyzing edge states properties of systems in a ribbon geometry and studying their entanglement spectra. We show that coupling to the substrate induces transition to the $Z_2$ topological insulator phase. It is observed that topological crystalline insulator (TCI) phase, found in planar crystals, exhibits an additional pair of edge states in both energy spectrum and entanglement spectrum. Transport calculations for TCI phase suggest robust quantized conductance even in the presence of crystal symmetry-breaking disorder.     

Impurity Effects at Surfaces of a Photon-Dressed Bi_2Se_3 Thin Film

We investigate the impurity effects on surfaces of a thin film topological insulator, applied by an off-resonant circular polarized light. It is found that the off-resonant driving induces a quantized total Hall conductivity, when the driving strength is larger than a critical value and the Fermi level lies in the band gap, indicating that our system is converted into the topological phase. We also find that with the increasing disorder strength, the Dirac masses of top and bottom surfaces are renormalized and then fixed to half of their initial values, respectively,which will shrink the widths of the half-integer plateau of anomalous Hall conductivities.     

Large Dynamical Axion Field in Topological Antiferromagnetic Insulator Mn_2Bi_2Te_5

The dynamical axion field is a new state of quantum matter where the magnetoelectric response couples strongly to its low-energy magnetic fluctuations.It is fundamentally different from an axion insulator with a static quantized magnetoelectric response.The dynamical axion field exhibits many exotic phenomena such as axionic polariton and axion instability.However,these effects have not been experimentally confirmed due to the lack of proper topological magnetic materials.Combining analytic models and first-principles calculations,here we predict a series of van der Waals layered Mn_2Bi_2Te_5-related topological antiferromagnetic materials that could host the long-sought dynamical axion field with a topological origin.We also show that a large dynamical axion field can be achieved in antiferromagnetic insulating states close to the topological phase transition.We further propose the optical and transport experiments to detect such a dynamical axion field.Our results could directly aid and facilitate the search for topological-origin large dynamical axion field in realistic materials.     

Spin-Hall insulator

Recent theories predict dissipationless spin current induced by an electric field in doped semiconductors. Nevertheless, the charge current is still dissipative in these systems. In this work, we theoretically predict the dissipationless spin-Hall effect, without any accompanying charge current, in some classes of band insulators, including zero-gap semiconductors such as HgTe and narrow-gap semiconductors such as PbTe. This effect is similar to the quantum-Hall effect in that all the states below the gap contribute and there occurs no dissipation. However, the spin-Hall conductance is not quantized even in two dimensions. This is the first example of a nontrivial topological structure in a band insulator without any magnetic field.     

Quantum spin Hall effect

The quantum Hall liquid is a novel state of matter with profound emergent properties such as fractional charge and statistics. The existence of the quantum Hall effect requires breaking of the time reversal symmetry caused by an external magnetic field. In this work, we predict a quantized spin Hall effect in the absence of any magnetic field, where the intrinsic spin Hall conductance is quantized in units of 2(e/4pi). The degenerate quantum Landau levels are created by the spin-orbit coupling in conventional semiconductors in the presence of a strain gradient. This new state of matter has many profound correlated properties described by a topological field theory.     

Fractional topological insulators in three dimensions

Topological insulators can be generally defined by a topological field theory with an axion angle θ of 0 or π. In this work, we introduce the concept of fractional topological insulator defined by a fractional axion angle and show that it can be consistent with time reversal T invariance if ground state degeneracies are present. The fractional axion angle can be measured experimentally by the quantized fractional bulk magnetoelectric polarization P?, and a "halved" fractional quantum Hall effect on the surface with Hall conductance of the form σH=p/q e2/2h with p, q odd. In the simplest of these states the electron behaves as a bound state of three fractionally charged "quarks" coupled to a deconfined non-Abelian SU(3) "color" gauge field, where the fractional charge of the quarks changes the quantization condition of P? and allows fractional values consistent with T invariance.     

Charge transport and shot noise on the surface of a topological insulator with a magnetic modulation

In this paper, we investigate the transport features and the Fano factor of Dirac electrons on the surface of a three-dimensional topological insulator with a magnetic modulation. We consider a hard wall bounding condition on the edge of the topological insulator, which implies that a surface state of the topological insulator is insulating. We find that a valley of conductivity at the Dirac point is associated with a Fano factor peak, and more interestingly, this topological metal changes from insulating to metallic by controlling the effective exchange field.     

Three-dimensional topological insulator in a magnetic field: chiral side surface states and quantized Hall conductance

Low energy excitation of surface states of a three-dimensional topological insulator (3DTI) can be described by Dirac fermions. By using a tight-binding model, the transport properties of the surface states in a uniform magnetic field are investigated. It is found that chiral surface states parallel to the magnetic field are responsible for the quantized Hall (QH) conductance (2n + 1)e2/h multiplied by the number of Dirac cones. Due to the two-dimensional nature of the surface states, the robustness of the QH conductance against impurity scattering is determined by the oddness and evenness of the Dirac cone number. An experimental setup for transport measurement is proposed.     

Quantum anomalous Hall effect and related topological electronic states

Over a long period of exploration, the successful observation of quantized version of anomalous Hall effect (AHE) in thin film of magnetically doped topological insulator (TI) completed a quantum Hall trio—quantum Hall effect (QHE), quantum spin Hall effect (QSHE), and quantum anomalous Hall effect (QAHE). On the theoretical front, it was understood that the intrinsic AHE is related to Berry curvature and U(1) gauge field in momentum space. This understanding established connection between the QAHE and the topological properties of electronic structures characterized by the Chern number. With the time-reversal symmetry (TRS) broken by magnetization, a QAHE system carries dissipationless charge current at edges, similar to the QHE where an external magnetic field is necessary. The QAHE and corresponding Chern insulators are also closely related to other topological electronic states, such as TIs and topological semimetals, which have been extensively studied recently and have been known to exist in various compounds. First-principles electronic structure calculations play important roles not only for the understanding of fundamental physics in this field, but also towards the prediction and realization of realistic compounds. In this article, a theoretical review on the Berry phase mechanism and related topological electronic states in terms of various topological invariants will be given with focus on the QAHE and Chern insulators. We will introduce the Wilson loop method and the band inversion mechanism for the selection and design of topological materials, and discuss the predictive power of first-principles calculations. Finally, remaining issues, challenges and possible applications for future investigations in the field will be addressed.     

Topological Phase Transition with Larger Winding Number in the Non-Hermitian Dimerized Lattice

The topological phase transitions among normal insulator phase, two kinds of topological insulator phases, and topological semimetal phase are shown based on the non-Hermitian dimerized Su–Schrieffer–Heeger (SSH) model with the nonreciprocal intercell and long-range hopping. In contrast to the previous work, it is found that the topological insulator phase in the present SSH model can hold the larger non-Bloch winding number accompanied by exceptional winding of the generalized Brillouin zone around the gap-closing points. Compared with the usual topological insulator phase in non-Hermitian SSH model, the topological insulator with the larger winding number owns two pairs of zero energy modes with a distinct form of edge localization in the gap. The physical mechanism of the distinct edge localization for zero energy modes via a equivalent Hermitian version of the non-Hermitian SSH model is revealed. Additionally, the process of the phase transition is visualized among normal insulator phase, topological insulator phases, and topological semimetal phase in detail via the evolution of the gap-closing points on the plane of generalized Brillouin zone. This work further verifies the non-Bloch theory and enrich the investigation about the topologically nontrivial phase with the larger topological invariant in the non-Hermitian SSH model.     

Cloaking magnetic field and generating electric field with topological insulator and high permeability material

Topological insulator is a new state of quantum matter. When applied magnetic field is applied on a topological insulator, not only the magnetic field is induced, but also the electric field is induced, vice versa. We designed bi-layer magnetic cloak with topological insulator and high permeability material (HPM), derived the electric field and magnetic field inside and outside the bi-layer topological insulator and HPM. Calculation and simulation results show that the applied magnetic field is cloaked by the bi-layer topological insulator and HPM, and the uniform electric field is induced in the cloaked region.     

Topological Invariant in Riemann–Cartan Manifold and Space-Time Defects

In a Riemann–Cartan manifold a topologicalinvariant is constructed in terms of the torsion tensor.Using the -mapping method and the completedecomposition of the gauge potential, the topologicalinvariant is extricated from a strong restrictivecondition and is quantized in units of an elementarylength. This topological invariant is linked to thefirst Chern class and its inner structure is labeled bya set of winding numbers. In the early universe,by extending to a gauge parallel basis in internal spaceand four analogous topological invariants, thespace-time defects are formulated in an invariant form and are quantized naturally in units of thePlanck length.