Exotic topological phases in polyacene chains

TL;DR

This paper explores exotic topological phases in polyacene chains using tight-binding models, revealing that different isomers exhibit contrasting topological properties despite similar band structures, and identifies modifications that induce nontrivial topology.

Contribution

Introduces five tight-binding models on polyacene, demonstrating how structural modifications lead to exotic topological phases and contrasting topological behaviors in isomers.

Findings

$trans$-polyacene exhibits nontrivial topological phase with nonzero winding number.

$cis$-polyacene is topologically trivial despite similar band structures.

Two modified structures show exotic topological behavior.

Abstract

The introduction of Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model has led to a major breakthrough in the area of one-dimensional topological insulators, even though this model was primarily formulated on an organic polymer called $trans$-polyacetylene in order to explain its anomalous conductivity. In this study, a group of five tight-binding models has been introduced which are formulated on another organic polymer called polyacene, where exotic topological behavior has been observed. Topological properties of the most common geometric isomers known as $cis$-polyacene, and $trans$-polyacene have been investigated along with three additional modified polyacene structures. Although their geometric structures differ by mirror symmetry, tight-binding band structures of $cis$-polyacene and $trans$-polyacene are found the same, where again their topological characters are found totally opposite. The $trans$-polyacene is nontrivial as it exhibits topological phase with nonzero winding number, while the $cis$-polyacene is topologically trivial, although both the structures adhere to the same set of symmetries required for the topological character. However, $cis$-polyacene possesses additional mirror symmetry in the real space. Three modified structures of polyacene have been considered in order to induce the nontrivial topology, where exotic topological behavior is noted in two of them.