Comparative study of Weyl semimetal, topological and Chern insulators: thin-film point of view

Abstract

Regarding three-dimensional (3D) topological insulators and semimetals as a stack of constituent 2D topological (or sometimes non-topological) layers is a useful viewpoint. Primarily, concrete theoretical models of the paradigmatic 3D topological phases such as Weyl semimetal (WSM), strong and weak topological insulators (STI/WTI), and Chern insulator (CI), are often constructed in that way. Secondarily, fabrication of the corresponding 3D topological material is also done in the same spirit; epitaxial growth technique is employed, making the resulting sample in the form of a thin film. Here, in this paper we calculate $\mathbb{Z}$- and ${\mathbb{Z}}_2$-indices and study evolution of the topological properties of such thin films of 3D topological systems, making also a comparative study of CI- vs. TI-type models belonging to different symmetry classes in this respect. Through this comparative study we suggest that WSM is to CI as STI is to WTI. Finally, to test the robustness of our scenario against disorder and relevance to experiments we have also studied numerically the two-terminal conductance of the system using transfer matrix method.

13 pages, 6 figures (11 panels in total)

References in corpus (13)

• Quantum Spin Hall Effect and Topological Phase Transition in HgTe Quantum Wells
• Weyl semimetal phase in non-centrosymmetric transition metal monophosphides
• Phase transition between the quantum spin Hall and insulator phases in 3D: emergence of a topological gapless phase
• Rare region effects dominate weakly disordered 3D Dirac points
• Spin polarization and texture of the Fermi arcs in the Weyl Fermion semimetal TaAs
• Diffusive Quantum Criticality in Three Dimensional Disordered Dirac Semimetals
• Unconventional localisation transition in high dimensions
• Finite-size energy gap in weak and strong topological insulators
• Modification and Control of Topological Insulator Surface States Using Surface Disorder
• Dimensional crossover and cold-atom realization of topological Mott insulators
• Topological states and phase transitions in Sb${}_2$Te${}_3$-GeTe multilayers
• Characterizing the weak topological properties: Berry phase point of view
• Regularization of a massless Dirac model to describe anomalous electromagnetic response of Weyl semimetals

Cited by in corpus (16)

• Deep Learning the Quantum Phase Transitions in Random Electron Systems: Applications to Three Dimensions
• Drawing Phase Diagrams of Random Quantum Systems by Deep Learning the Wave Functions
• Fermi arc reconstruction in synthetic photonic lattice
• Topological Anderson insulator phase in a Dirac-semimetal thin film
• Quantum Transport in Weyl Semimetal Thin Films in the Presence of Spin-Orbit Coupled Impurities
• Weyl semimetal/insulator transition from holography
• Chern Insulator Phase in a Lattice of an Organic Dirac Semimetal with Intracellular Potential and Magnetic Modulations
• Topological Phases in a Weyl Semimetal Multilayer
• Ballistic transport in disordered Dirac and Weyl semimetals
• Ferromagnetic-electrodes-induced Hall effect in topological Dirac semimetals
• Tunnelling theory of Weyl semimetals in proximity to a metallic band
• Spontaneous charge current in a doped Weyl semimetal
• Chiral surface states on the step edge in a Weyl semimetal
• Intrinsic and extrinsic anomalous Hall effects in disordered magnetic Weyl semimetal
• Origin of Robust ${\mathbb{Z}}_2$ Topological Phases in Stacked Hermitian Systems: Non-Hermitian Level Repulsion
• Non-unique connection between bulk topological invariants and surface physics