Research report 2012 - Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids
Topological insulators from a chemical point of view
Authors
Felser, Claudia; Chadov, Stanislav; Müchler, Lukas; Yan, Binghai; Kübler, Jürgen; Zhang, Shou-Cheng1
Departments
Max-Planck-Institut für chemische Physik fester Stoffe, Dresden
1 Stanford University, Stanford, USA
1 Stanford University, Stanford, USA
Summary
Topological insulators (TIs) are a new quantum state of matter, which have attracted interest of condensed matter science. The materials are small band gap insulators with robust gapless surface states. Remarkable is that topological insulators can be predicted by ab initio theory and even understood from a chemist’s perspective. Herein, a simple recipe based on bonds, bands, symmetry, and nuclear charge will be given to motivate a systematic search for new topologically nontrivial materials.