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Title: Structural Amorphization-Induced Topological Order

Journal Article · · Physical Review Letters

Electronic properties of crystals are inherently pertained to crystalline symmetry, so that amorphization that lowers and breaks symmetry is detrimental. One important crystalline property is electron band topology which is known to be weakened and destroyed by structural disorder. Here, we report a counterintuitive theoretical discovery that atomic structural disorder by amorphization can in fact induce electronic order of topology in an otherwise topologically trivial crystal. The resulting nontrivial topology is characterized by a nonzero spin Bott index, associated with robust topological edge states and quantized conductance. Further, the underlying topological phase transition (TPT) from a trivial crystal to a topological amorphous is analyzed by mapping out a phase diagram in the degree of structural disorder using an effective medium theory. The atomic disorder is revealed to induce topological order by renormalizing the spectral gap toward nontriviality near the phase boundary. As a concrete example, we further show such TPT in amorphous stanane by first-principles calculations. Our findings point to possible observation of an electronic ordering transition accompanied by a structural disorder transition.

Research Organization:
Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
National Key Research and Development Program of China; National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
Grant/Contract Number:
FG02-04ER46148
OSTI ID:
1905830
Journal Information:
Physical Review Letters, Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Issue: 5 Vol. 128; ISSN 0031-9007
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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