Interfacial-state coupling induced topological phase transitions in SnTe (110) thin film

Abstract

A defining feature of topological insulating phases is symmetry-protected interfacial Dirac states. SnTe is a representative topological crystalline insulator, of which (110) thin films have two symmetry-unrelated valleys of interfacial states. With the help of valley-contrasting couplings of interfacial states, we design various two-dimensional topological phases in (110) SnTe thin film systems. Our first-principles calculations demonstrate that surface-state coupling strengths of two valleys independently vary with the thickness of the thin film, leading to both two-dimensional topological crystalline insulator and quantum spin Hall insulator. Most interestingly, by constructing a nanoribbon array of SnTe thin film, edge-state couplings of nanoribbons can further induce topological phase transition between the above topological phases with high tunability, which offers multi-mode quantum transport with potential use in electronic and spintronic devices.

6 Pages, 4 Figures

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Cited by in corpus (5)

• Purely rotational symmetry-protected topological crystalline insulator $\alpha$-Bi4Br4
• Topological crystalline insulator states in the Ca${}_2$As family
• Defect-free SnTe topological crystalline insulator nanowires grown by molecular beam epitaxy on graphene
• Emergence of charge density wave and superconducting phase transitions through Lorentz-invariant interactions in the Haldane-Hubbard model
• Multiple types of spin textures and robust valley physics in MP${}_2$X${}_6$