Stacked topological insulator built from bismuth-based graphene sheet analogues

Abstract

Commonly materials are classified as either electrical conductors or insulators. The theoretical discovery of topological insulators (TIs) in 2005 has fundamentally challenged this dichotomy. In a TI, spin-orbit interaction generates a non-trivial topology of the electronic band-structure dictating that its bulk is perfectly insulating, while its surface is fully conducting. The first TI candidate material put forward -graphene- is of limited practical use since its weak spin-orbit interactions produce a band-gap of ~0.01K. Recent reinvestigation of Bi2Se3 and Bi2Te3, however, have firmly categorized these materials as strong three-dimensional TI's. We have synthesized the first bulk material belonging to an entirely different, weak, topological class, built from stacks of two-dimensional TI's: Bi14Rh3I9. Its Bi-Rh sheets are graphene analogs, but with a honeycomb net composed of RhBi8-cubes rather than carbon atoms. The strong bismuth-related spin-orbit interaction renders each graphene-like layer a TI with a 2400K band-gap.

10 pages, 3 figures

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Cited by in corpus (84)

• Topological Insulator Materials
• Colloquium: Topological Band Theory
• Topological quantum materials from the viewpoint of chemistry
• Topological Materials Discovery from Crystal Symmetry
• Robust topological edge states at the perfect surface step edge of topological insulator ZrTe${}_5$
• Material design with the van der Waals stacking of bismuth-halide chains realizing a higher-order topological insulator
• Bulk Dirac points in distorted spinels
• Discovery of switchable weak topological insulator state in quasi-one-dimensional bismuth iodide
• A Non-Centrosymmetric Superconductor with a Bulk 3D Dirac Cone Gapped by Strong Spin Orbit Coupling
• Sub-nm wide electron channels protected by topology
• Topological phases without crystalline counterparts
• Gapless Symmetry Protected Topological Order
• A Novel Quasi-One-Dimensional Topological Insulator in Bismuth Iodide $\beta$-Bi${}_4$I${}_4$
• Aperiodic Weak Topological Superconductors
• Weak Topological Insulators and Composite Weyl Semimetals: $\beta$-Bi${}_4$X${}_4$ (X=Br, I)
• $\mbox{Bi}_{1}\mbox{Te}_{1}$: a dual topological insulator
• Topological Luttinger Liquids from Decorated Domain Walls
• Observation and control of the weak topological insulator state in ZrTe5
• Emergence of topological bands on the surface of ZrSnTe crystal
• Topological states in pyrochlore iridates: long-range anisotropy strongly competing with spin-orbit interaction
• Two-Dimensional Transition Metal Dichalcogenides with a Hexagonal Lattice: Room Temperature Quantum Spin Hall Insulators
• Topological Mirror Insulators in One Dimension
• Weak topological insulators induced by the inter-layer coupling: A first-principles study of stacked Bi2TeI
• Evidence for a quantum-spin-Hall phase in graphene decorated with Bi2Te3 nanoparticles
• Bulk-corner correspondence of time-reversal symmetric insulators: deduplicating real-space invariants
• Dislocation charges reveal two-dimensional topological crystalline invariants
• Dual topology in Jacutingaite Pt${}_2$HgSe${}_3$
• On the topological immunity of corner states in two-dimensional crystalline insulators
• Topological Edge States with Zero Hall Conductivity in a Dimerized Hofstadter Model
• Testing Topological Protection of Edge States in Hexagonal Quantum Spin Hall Candidate Materials
• Excess charges as a probe of one-dimensional topological crystalline insulating phases
• Wavefunctions of Symmetry Protected Topological Phases from Conformal Field Theories
• Bulk characterization of topological crystalline insulators: stability under interactions and relations to symmetry enriched U(1) quantum spin liquids
• Infinite Projected Entangled-Pair State algorithm for ruby and triangle-honeycomb lattices
• Experimental realization of two-dimensional weak topological insulators
• Room-Temperature Topological Phase Transition in Quasi-One-Dimensional Material Bi${}_4$I${}_4$
• Functionalized Thallium Antimony Films as Excellent Candidates for Large-Gap Quantum Spin Hall Insulator
• Designer Topological Insulators in Superlattices
• Classification of crystalline insulators without symmetry indicators: atomic and fragile topological phases in twofold rotation symmetric systems
• Spin-directed network model for the surface states of weak three-dimensional ${\mathbb{Z}}_2^{}$ topological insulators
• Discovery of a weak topological insulating state and van Hove singularity in triclinic RhBi2
• The fundamental differences between Quantum Spin Hall edge-states at zig-zag and armchair terminations of honeycomb and ruby nets
• Robust Room-Temperature Quantum Spin Hall Effect in Methyl-functionalized InBi honeycomb film
• Topological states and phase transitions in Sb${}_2$Te${}_3$-GeTe multilayers
• Transport discovery of emerging robust helical surface states in $Z_2=0$ systems
• Coupled Spin and Pseudo-magnetic Field in Graphene Nanoribbons
• Dimensional crossover of transport characteristics in topological insulator nanofilms
• Space group constraints on weak indices in topological insulators
• Characterizing the weak topological properties: Berry phase point of view
• Effects of Defects and Dephasing on Charge and Spin Currents in Two-Dimensional Topological Insulators
• BaSn${}_2$: A new, wide-gap, strong topological insulator
• Spin- and angle-resolved photoemission on the topological Kondo Insulator candidate: SmB6
• Topological spin liquids in the ruby lattice with anisotropic Kitaev interactions
• Pressure-induced superconductivity in weak topological insulator BiSe
• Controlling the Flow of Spin and Charge in Nanoscopic Topological Insulators
• Topological ${\mathbb{Z}}_2$ RVB quantum spin liquid on the ruby lattice
• Spatially resolved Landau level spectroscopy of the topological Dirac cone of bulk-type Sb2Te3(0001): potential fluctuations and quasiparticle lifetime
• One-dimensional Dirac electrons on the surface of weak topological insulators
• Surface-state spin textures in strained bulk HgTe: strain-induced topological phase transitions
• Correlation between topological band character and chemical bonding in a $\mathbf{B}{\mathbf{i}}_{14}\mathbf{R}{\mathbf{h}}_3{\mathbf{I}}_9$-based family of insulators
• A robust weak topological insulator in a bismuth halide Bi4Br2I2
• Insights on unconventional superconductivity in HfV${}_2$Ga${}_4$ and ScV${}_2$Ga${}_4$ from first principles electronic structure calculations
• Edge states and topological properties of electrons on the bismuth on silicon surface with giant spin-orbit coupling
• Topological end states due to inhomogeneous strains in wrinkled semiconducting ribbons
• Absence of helical surface states in bulk semimetals with broken inversion symmetry
• Delocalization of surface Dirac electrons in disordered weak topological insulators
• Effective model for massless Dirac electrons on a surface of weak topological insulators
• Chemical Gating of a Weak Topological Insulator: Bi14Rh3I9
• Nontrivial gapless electronic states at the stacking faults of weak topological insulators
• STM observation of the hinge-states of bismuth nanocrystals
• Synthesizing Weyl semimetals in weak topological insulator and topological crystalline insulator multilayers
• Semimetal behavior of bilayer stanene
• Strong and Weak Three-Dimensional Topological Insulators Probed by Surface Science Methods
• Weak topological insulating phases of hard-core-bosons on the honeycomb lattice
• Manipulating quantum channels in weak topological insulator nanoarchitectures
• Layer dependent topological phases and transitions in TaRhTe${}_4$: From monolayer and bilayer to bulk
• Observation of Dirac-like surface state bands on the top surface of BiSe
• Ergodic Archimedean dimers
• Engineering Dirac electrons emergent on the surface of a topological insulator
• Landau levels on a surface of weak topological insulators
• Origin of Robust ${\mathbb{Z}}_2$ Topological Phases in Stacked Hermitian Systems: Non-Hermitian Level Repulsion
• Weak topological insulators with step edges: Subband engineering and its effect on electron transport
• Crystalline Weyl semimetal phase in Quantum Spin Hall systems under magnetic fields
• Simplex Crystal Ground State and Magnetization Plateaus in the Spin-$1/2$ Heisenberg Model on the Ruby Lattice