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Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
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    Symmetry‐Induced Selective Excitation of Topological States in Su–Schrieffer–Heeger Waveguide Arrays
    (Weinheim : Wiley-VCH, 2023) Tang, Min; Wang, Jiawei; Valligatla, Sreeramulu; Saggau, Christian N.; Dong, Haiyun; Saei Ghareh Naz, Ehsan; Klembt, Sebastian; Lee, Ching Hua; Thomale, Ronny; van den Brink, Jeroen; Fulga, Ion Cosma; Schmidt, Oliver G.; Ma, Libo
    The investigation of topological state transition in carefully designed photonic lattices is of high interest for fundamental research, as well as for applied studies such as manipulating light flow in on-chip photonic systems. Herein, the topological phase transition between symmetric topological zero modes (TZM) and antisymmetric TZMs in Su–Schrieffer–Heeger mirror symmetric waveguides is reported. The transition of TZMs is realized by adjusting the coupling ratio between neighboring waveguide pairs, which is enabled by selective modulation of the refractive index in the waveguide gaps. Bidirectional topological transitions between symmetric and antisymmetric TZMs can be achieved with proposed switching strategy. Selective excitation of topological edge mode is demonstrated owing to the symmetry characteristics of the TZMs. The flexible manipulation of topological states is promising for on-chip light flow control and may spark further investigations on symmetric/antisymmetric TZM transitions in other photonic topological frameworks.
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    Chirality flip of Weyl nodes and its manifestation in strained MoTe2
    (College Park, MD : APS, 2021) Könye, Viktor; Bouhon, Adrien; Fulga, Ion Cosma; Slager, Robert-Jan; van den Brink, Jeroen; Facio, Jorge I.
    Due to their topological charge, or chirality, the Weyl cones present in topological semimetals are considered robust against arbitrary perturbations. One well-understood exception to this robustness is the pairwise creation or annihilation of Weyl cones, which involves the overlap of two oppositely charged nodes in energy and momentum. Here we show that their topological charge can in fact change sign, in a process that involves the merging of not two, but three Weyl nodes. This is facilitated by the presence of rotation and time-reversal symmetries, which constrain the relative positions of Weyl cones in momentum space. We analyze the chirality flip process, showing that transport properties distinguish it from the conventional, double Weyl merging. Moreover, we predict that the chirality flip occurs in MoTe$_2$, where experimentally accessible strain leads to the merging of three Weyl cones close to the Fermi level. Our work sets the stage to further investigate and observe such chirality flipping processes in different topological materials.
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    Magnetic warping in topological insulators
    (College Park, MD : APS, 2022) Naselli, Gabriele; Moghaddam, Ali G.; Di Napoli, Solange; Vildosola, Verónica; Fulga, Ion Cosma; van den Brink, Jeroen; Facio, Jorge I.
    We analyze the electronic structure of topological surface states in the family of magnetic topological insulators MnBi2nTe3n+1. We show that, at natural-cleavage surfaces, the Dirac cone warping changes its symmetry from hexagonal to trigonal at the magnetic ordering temperature. In particular, an energy splitting develops between the surface states of the same band index but opposite surface momenta upon formation of the long-range magnetic order. As a consequence, measurements of such energy splittings constitute a simple protocol to detect the magnetic ordering via the surface electronic structure, alternative to the detection of the surface magnetic gap. Interestingly, while the latter signals a nonzero surface magnetization, the trigonal warping predicted here is, in addition, sensitive to the direction of the surface magnetic flux. Our results may be particularly useful when the Dirac point is buried in the projection of the bulk states, caused by certain terminations of the crystal or in hole-doped systems, since in both situations the surface magnetic gap itself is not accessible in photoemission experiments.
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    Anomalous levitation and annihilation in Floquet topological insulators
    (College Park, MD : APS, 2020) Liu, Hui; Fulga, Ion Cosma; Asbóth, János K.
    Anderson localization in two-dimensional topological insulators takes place via the so-called levitation and pair annihilation process. As disorder is increased, extended bulk states carrying opposite topological invariants move towards each other in energy, reducing the size of the topological gap, eventually meeting and localizing. This results in a topologically trivial Anderson insulator. Here, we introduce the anomalous levitation and pair annihilation, a process unique to periodically driven, or Floquet, systems. Due to the periodicity of the quasienergy spectrum, we find it is possible for the topological gap to increase as a function of disorder strength. Thus, after all bulk states have localized, the system remains topologically nontrivial, forming an anomalous Floquet-Anderson insulator (AFAI) phase. We show a concrete example for this process, adding disorder via on-site potential “kicks” to a Chern insulator model. By changing the period between kicks, we can tune which type of (conventional or anomalous) levitation and annihilation occurs in the system. We expect our results to be applicable to generic Floquet topological systems and to provide an accessible way to realize AFAIs experimentally, without the need for multistep driving schemes.
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    Bulk-boundary-defect correspondence at disclinations in rotation-symmetric topological insulators and superconductors
    (Amsterdam : SciPost Foundation, 2021) Geier, Max; Fulga, Ion Cosma; Lau, Alexander
    We study a link between the ground-state topology and the topology of the lattice via the presence of anomalous states at disclinations -- topological lattice defects that violate a rotation symmetry only locally. We first show the existence of anomalous disclination states, such as Majorana zero-modes or helical electronic states, in second-order topological phases by means of Volterra processes. Using the framework of topological crystals to construct d-dimensional crystalline topological phases with rotation and translation symmetry, we then identify all contributions to (d−2)-dimensional anomalous disclination states from weak and first-order topological phases. We perform this procedure for all Cartan symmetry classes of topological insulators and superconductors in two and three dimensions and determine whether the correspondence between bulk topology, boundary signatures, and disclination anomaly is unique.
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    Sixfold fermion near the Fermi level in cubic PtBi2
    (Amsterdam : SciPost Foundation, 2021) Thirupathaiah, Setti; Kushnirenko, Yevhen; Koepernik, Klaus; Piening, Boy Roman; Büchner, Bernd; Aswartham, Saicharan; van den Brink, Jeroen; Borisenko, Sergey; Fulga, Ion Cosma
    We show that the cubic compound PtBi2, is a topological semimetal hosting a sixfold band touching point in close proximity to the Fermi level. Using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, we map the bandstructure of the system, which is in good agreement with results from density functional theory. Further, by employing a low energy effective Hamiltonian valid close to the crossing point, we study the effect of a magnetic field on the sixfold fermion. The latter splits into a total of twenty Weyl cones for a Zeeman field oriented in the diagonal, [111] direction. Our results mark cubic PtBi2, as an ideal candidate to study the transport properties of gapless topological systems beyond Dirac and Weyl semimetals.
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    Engineering a pure Dirac regime in ZrTe5
    (Amsterdam : SciPost Foundation, 2023) Facio, Jorge I.; Nocerino, Elisabetta; Fulga, Ion Cosma; Wawrzynczak, Rafal; Brown, Joanna; Gu, Genda; Li, Qiang; Mansson, Martin; Sassa, Yasmine; Ivashko, Oleh; von Zimmermann, Martin; Mende, Felix; Gooth, Johannes; Galeski, Stanislaw; van den Brink, Jeroen; Meng, Tobias
    Real-world topological semimetals typically exhibit Dirac and Weyl nodes that coexist with trivial Fermi pockets. This tends to mask the physics of the relativistic quasiparticles. Using the example of ZrTe5, we show that strain provides a powerful tool for in-situ tuning of the band structure such that all trivial pockets are pushed far away from the Fermi energy, but only for a certain range of Van der Waals gaps. Our results naturally reconcile contradicting reports on the presence or absence of additional pockets in ZrTe5, and provide a clear map of where to find a pure three-dimensional Dirac semimetallic phase in the structural parameter space of the material.
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    Simulating Floquet topological phases in static systems
    (Amsterdam : SciPost Foundation, 2021) Franca, Selma; Hassler, Fabian; Fulga, Ion Cosma
    We show that scattering from the boundary of static, higher-order topological insulators (HOTIs) can be used to simulate the behavior of (time-periodic) Floquet topological insulators. We consider D-dimensional HOTIs with gapless corner states which are weakly probed by external waves in a scattering setup. We find that the unitary reflection matrix describing back-scattering from the boundary of the HOTI is topologically equivalent to a (D-1)-dimensional nontrivial Floquet operator. To characterize the topology of the reflection matrix, we introduce the concept of `nested' scattering matrices. Our results provide a route to engineer topological Floquet systems in the lab without the need for external driving. As benefit, the topological system does not to suffer from decoherence and heating.