Weak quantization of non-interacting topological Anderson insulator

Abstract

We study the transition between the two-dimensional topological insulator (TI) featuring quantized edge conductance and the trivial Anderson insulator (AI) induced by strong disorder. We discover a distinct scaling behavior of TI near the phase transition where the longitudinal conductance approaches the quantized value by a power law with system size, instead of an exponential law in clean TI. This region is thus called the weak quantization topological insulator (WQTI). By using the self-consistent Born approximation, we associate the emergence of the weak quantization with the imaginary part of the effective self-energy acquiring a finite value at strong disorder. We use our analytical theory, supported by direct numerical simulations, to study the effect of disorder range on the topological Anderson insulator. Interestingly, while this phase is quite generic for uncorrelated or short-range disorder, it is strongly suppressed by long-range disorder, perhaps explaining why it has never been seen in solid state systems.

11 pages, 8 figures

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Cited by in corpus (8)

• Phase transitions and scale invariance in topological Anderson insulators
• Floquet second-order topological Anderson insulator hosting corner localized modes
• Anatomy of topological Anderson transitions
• From topological phase to Anderson localization in a two-dimensional quasiperiodic system
• Half-Quantized Hall Metal and Marginal Metal in Disordered Magnetic Topological Insulators
• Topology reconstruction for asymmetric systems by isomorphic mapping or perturbation approximation
• Recent progress on disorder-induced topological phases
• Disordered Parity Anomalous Semimetal