Ring states in topological materials

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Queiroz, Raquel, Ilan, Roni, Song, Zhida, Bernevig, B. Andrei, Stern, Ady
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2024
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author Queiroz, Raquel
Ilan, Roni
Song, Zhida
Bernevig, B. Andrei
Stern, Ady
author_facet Queiroz, Raquel
Ilan, Roni
Song, Zhida
Bernevig, B. Andrei
Stern, Ady
contents Ingap states are commonly observed in semiconductors and are often well characterized by a hydrogenic model within the effective mass approximation. However, when impurities are strong, they significantly perturb all momentum eigenstates, leading to deep-level bound states that reveal the global properties of the unperturbed band structure. In this work, we discover that the topology of band wavefunctions can impose zeros in the impurity-projected Green's function within topological gaps. These zeros can be interpreted as spectral attractors, defining the energy at which ingap states are pinned in the presence of infinitely strong local impurities. Their pinning energy is found by minimizing the level repulsion of band eigenstates onto the ingap state. We refer to these states as ring states, marked by a mixed band character and a node at the impurity site, guaranteeing their orthogonality to the bare impurity eigenstates and a weak energy dependence on the impurity strength. We show that the inability to construct symmetric and exponentially localized Wannier functions ensures topological protection of ring states. Linking ring states together, the edge or surface modes can be recovered for any topologically protected phase. Therefore, ring states can also be viewed as building blocks of boundary modes, offering a framework to understand bulk-boundary correspondence.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2406_03529
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Ring states in topological materials
Queiroz, Raquel
Ilan, Roni
Song, Zhida
Bernevig, B. Andrei
Stern, Ady
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
Materials Science
Ingap states are commonly observed in semiconductors and are often well characterized by a hydrogenic model within the effective mass approximation. However, when impurities are strong, they significantly perturb all momentum eigenstates, leading to deep-level bound states that reveal the global properties of the unperturbed band structure. In this work, we discover that the topology of band wavefunctions can impose zeros in the impurity-projected Green's function within topological gaps. These zeros can be interpreted as spectral attractors, defining the energy at which ingap states are pinned in the presence of infinitely strong local impurities. Their pinning energy is found by minimizing the level repulsion of band eigenstates onto the ingap state. We refer to these states as ring states, marked by a mixed band character and a node at the impurity site, guaranteeing their orthogonality to the bare impurity eigenstates and a weak energy dependence on the impurity strength. We show that the inability to construct symmetric and exponentially localized Wannier functions ensures topological protection of ring states. Linking ring states together, the edge or surface modes can be recovered for any topologically protected phase. Therefore, ring states can also be viewed as building blocks of boundary modes, offering a framework to understand bulk-boundary correspondence.
title Ring states in topological materials
topic Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
Materials Science
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.03529