First-principles study of temperature effects in topological insulator phase diagrams

ORAL

Abstract

Recent studies have identified several tunable three-dimensional topological insulators. Upon varying experimental parameters such as pressure or doping, these materials exhibit a transition between a trivial and a topological insulating phase. We present a first-principles study of temperature effects in the family of alloyed BiTlS$_2$ / BiTlSe$_2$ topological phase transition materials. Through the electron-phonon coupling, the electronic bands being renormalized at finite temperature allow for a topological phase transition at some critical temperature. We find a temperature-doping phase diagram having a confined topological phase region, with the topological phase suppressed at high temperature. We also discuss the converse scenario in which phonons might favour the topological phase, as previously anticipated.

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Authors

  • Gabriel Antonius

    University of California at Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab

  • Steven G. Louie

    University of California at Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Physics Department, UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, University of California at Berkeley, University of California, Berkeley, University of California at Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, UC Berkeley and LBNL, UCB Physics and LBNL MSD