Topological Peierls Transitions in M\"{o}bius Molecular Devices

TL;DR

This paper investigates the topological properties of Peierls transitions in a Möbius ladder, revealing that certain dimerization patterns induce a topological insulator phase with charged soliton edge states.

Contribution

It introduces a novel topological insulator phase in a Möbius ladder system driven by specific Peierls dimerization patterns, highlighting the emergence of soliton edge states.

Findings

Identification of a topological insulator phase in Möbius ladders

Charged solitons as gapless edge states

Edge states originate from non-trivial topological boundary conditions

Abstract

We study the topological properties of Peierls transitions in a monovalent M\"{o}bius ladder. Along the transverse and longitudinal directions of the ladder, there exist plenty Peierls phases corresponding to various dimerization patterns. Resulted from a special modulation, namely, staggered modulation along the longitudinal direction, the ladder system in the insulator phase behaves as a ``topological insulator'', which possesses charged solitons as the gapless edge states existing in the gap. Such solitary states promise the dispersionless propagation along the longitudinal direction of the ladder system. Intrinsically, these non-trivial edges states originates from the Peierls phases boundary, which arises from the non-trivial $\mathbb{Z}^{2}$ topological configuration.