Topological Critical Materials of Ternary Compounds

TL;DR

This review discusses the topological properties of specific ternary compounds, predicting their potential as topological semimetals and insulators, with a focus on their tunable states and exotic surface phenomena.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of the topological phases in two series of ternary compounds, highlighting their tunability and potential for novel surface states.

Findings

AMgBi compounds are predicted to be topological Dirac semimetals.

KZnP, BaAgAs, NaAuTe, KHgSb can realize various topological states.

Surface states are predicted to be exotic and related to crystal structure.

Abstract

We review topological properties of two series of ternary compounds AMgBi (A=K, RB, Cs) and ABC with a hexagonal ZrBeSi type structure. The first series of materials AMgBi are predicted to be topological critical Dirac semimetals. The second series of ternary compounds, such as KZnP, BaAgAs, NaAuTe and KHgSb, can be used to realize various topological insulating states and semimetal states. The states are highly tunable as the realization of these topological states depends on the competition between several energy scales, including the energy of atomic orbitals, the energy of crystal splitting, the energy difference between bonding and antibonding states, and the strength of spin-orbit coupling. The exotic surface states in these series of compounds are predicted and are closely related to their unique crystal structures.