Topological Anderson insulator phase in a Dirac-semimetal thin film

Abstract

The recently discovered topological Dirac semimetal represents a new exotic quantum state of matter. Topological Dirac semimetals can be viewed as three dimensional analogues of graphene, in which the Dirac nodes are protected by crystalline symmetry. It has been found that quantum confinement effect can gap out Dirac nodes and convert Dirac semimetal to a band insulator. The band insulator is either normal insulator or quantum spin Hall insulator depending on the thin film thickness. We present the study of disorder effects in thin film of Dirac semimetals. It is found that moderate Anderson disorder strength can drive a topological phase transition from normal band insulator to topological Anderson insulator in Dirac semimetal thin film. The numerical calculation based on the model parameters of Dirac semimetal Na${}_3$Bi shows that in the topological Anderson insulator phase a quantized conductance plateau occurs in the bulk gap of band insulator, and the distributions of local currents further confirm that the quantized conductance plateau arises from the helical edge states induced by disorder. Finally, an effective medium theory based on Born approximation fits the numerical data.

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• Floquet topological insulator phase in a Weyl semimetal thin film with disorder
• Higher-order topological Anderson insulators in quasicrystals
• Dimensional Crossover and Topological Phase Transition in Dirac Semimetal Na3Bi Films
• Disorder-induced topological phase transitions on Lieb lattices
• Topological Anderson insulators in an Ammann-Beenker quasicrystal and a snub-square crystal
• Quantum Hall effect originated from helical edge states in Cd${}_3$As${}_2$
• Size-Dependent Grain Boundary Scattering in Topological Semimetals
• Structural disorder-induced topological phase transitions in quasicrystals
• Disorder-induced phase transitions in double Weyl semimetals
• Chiral edge state coupling theory of transport in quantum anomalous Hall insulators
• Half-Quantized Hall Metal and Marginal Metal in Disordered Magnetic Topological Insulators
• Emergent Weyl-like points in periodically modulated systems
• Disorder-induced chiral and helical Majorana edge modes in a two-dimensional Ammann-Beenker quasicrystal