Topological phases in Bi/Sb planar and buckled honeycomb monolayers

TL;DR

This paper explores topological phases in Bi/Sb honeycomb monolayers, demonstrating how substrate interactions induce topological insulator states and analyzing their edge states and transport properties.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of topological phases in planar and buckled Bi/Sb monolayers using tight-binding and DFT methods, highlighting substrate effects.

Findings

Weak substrate coupling induces $Z_2$ topological insulator phase.

Topological crystalline insulator phase shows robust edge states.

Quantized conductance persists despite disorder.

Abstract

We investigate topological phases in two-dimensional Bi/Sb honeycomb crystals considering planar, buckled, freestanding and deposited on a substrate structures. We use the multi-orbital tight-binding model and compare results with density functional theory methods. We distinguish topological phases by calculating topological invariants, analyze edge states of systems in a ribbon geometry and by looking at their entanglement spectra. We show that weak coupling to the substrate of buckled and planar crystals is sufficient to lead to a transition to the $Z_2$ topological insulator phase. Topological crystalline insulator (TCI) phase exhibits a pair of edge states in the semi-infinite geometry and in the entanglement spectrum. Transport calculations for TCI phases show robust quantized conductance even in a presence of symmetry-breaking disorder.