skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Two-dimensional topological insulators with tunable band gaps: Single-layer HgTe and HgSe

Journal Article · · Scientific Reports
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/srep14115· OSTI ID:1259708
 [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [2];  [2];  [3];  [1]
  1. Xiangtan Univ., Hunan (People's Republic of China)
  2. California State Univ., Northridge, CA (United States)
  3. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

Two-dimensional (2D) topological insulators (TIs) with large band gaps are of great importance for the future applications of quantum spin Hall (QSH) effect. Employing ab initio electronic calculations we propose a novel type of 2D topological insulators, the monolayer (ML) low-buckled (LB) mercury telluride (HgTe) and mercury selenide (HgSe), with tunable band gap. We demonstrate that LB HgTe (HgSe) monolayers undergo a trivial insulator to topological insulator transition under in-plane tensile strain of 2.6% (3.1%) due to the combination of the strain and the spin orbital coupling (SOC) effects. Furthermore, the band gaps can be tuned up to large values (0.2 eV for HgTe and 0.05 eV for HgSe) by tensile strain, which far exceed those of current experimentally realized 2D quantum spin Hall insulators. Lastly, our results suggest a new type of material suitable for practical applications of 2D TI at room-temperature.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
Grant/Contract Number:
DMR-1205734; 11404275; 11474244; 4040204; 11204261; 11304264; 11204260; IRT13093; 2012CB921303; 2015CB921103; AC05-00OR22725
OSTI ID:
1259708
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1265987
Journal Information:
Scientific Reports, Vol. 5; ISSN 2045-2322
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 40 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (74)

Epitaxial growth of single-domain graphene on hexagonal boron nitride journal July 2013
Topological Insulator Nanowires and Nanoribbons journal January 2010
Aharonov–Bohm interference in topological insulator nanoribbons journal December 2009
Quantum Spin Hall Insulator State in HgTe Quantum Wells journal November 2007
wannier90: A tool for obtaining maximally-localised Wannier functions journal May 2008
Graphene–MoS2 hybrid structures for multifunctional photoresponsive memory devices journal October 2013
Novel Field-Effect Schottky Barrier Transistors Based on Graphene-MoS2 Heterojunctions journal August 2014
Quantum Spin Hall Effect and Topological Phase Transition in HgTe Quantum Wells journal December 2006
Andreev Reflection of Helical Edge Modes in InAs / GaSb Quantum Spin Hall Insulator journal October 2012
Monolayer graphene/hexagonal boron nitride heterostructure journal April 2013
Observation of Depolarized ZnO(0001) Monolayers: Formation of Unreconstructed Planar Sheets journal July 2007
Strain-induced quantum spin Hall effect in methyl-substituted germanane GeCH3 journal December 2014
Robust Two-Dimensional Topological Insulators in Methyl-Functionalized Bismuth, Antimony, and Lead Bilayer Films journal January 2015
Chemical deposition of cubic CdSe and HgSe thin films and their characterization journal October 2003
Quantum Hall Effect from the Topological Surface States of Strained Bulk HgTe journal March 2011
Epitaxial growth of a silicene sheet journal November 2010
Novel Family of Chiral-Based Topological Insulators: Elemental Tellurium under Strain journal April 2013
The quantum spin Hall effect and topological insulators journal January 2010
Graphene-like silicon nanoribbons on Ag(110): A possible formation of silicene journal May 2010
Graphene-Like Two-Dimensional Materials journal January 2013
Electrical characteristics of HgTe nanocrystal-based thin film transistors fabricated on flexible plastic substrates journal September 2008
Experimental observation of the quantum Hall effect and Berry's phase in graphene journal November 2005
Buckled Silicene Formation on Ir(111) journal January 2013
Epitaxial growth of silicene on ultra-thin Ag(111) films journal September 2014
Evidence of Silicene in Honeycomb Structures of Silicon on Ag(111) journal June 2012
Accurate Band Gaps of Semiconductors and Insulators with a Semilocal Exchange-Correlation Potential journal June 2009
Prediction of Two-Dimensional Topological Crystalline Insulator in PbSe Monolayer journal September 2014
Electric Field Effect in Atomically Thin Carbon Films journal October 2004
Prediction of Large-Gap Two-Dimensional Topological Insulators Consisting of Bilayers of Group III Elements with Bi journal April 2014
Oscillatory effects and the magnetic susceptibility of carriers in inversion layers journal November 1984
Hydrogenated ultra-thin tin films predicted as two-dimensional topological insulators journal November 2014
Graphene/MoS 2 Hybrid Technology for Large-Scale Two-Dimensional Electronics journal May 2014
Topological insulators with inversion symmetry journal July 2007
Colloquium: Topological insulators journal November 2010
Intrinsic and Rashba spin-orbit interactions in graphene sheets journal October 2006
Spin-orbit gap of graphene: First-principles calculations journal January 2007
Large-Gap Quantum Spin Hall Insulators in Tin Films journal September 2013
Functionalized germanene as a prototype of large-gap two-dimensional topological insulators journal March 2014
Graphene-based and graphene-like materials journal July 2012
Theoretical possibility of stage corrugation in Si and Ge analogs of graphite journal November 1994
Silicon and III-V compound nanotubes: Structural and electronic properties journal August 2005
Two- and One-Dimensional Honeycomb Structures of Silicon and Germanium journal June 2009
Monolayer honeycomb structures of group-IV elements and III-V binary compounds: First-principles calculations journal October 2009
Experimental Evidence for Epitaxial Silicene on Diboride Thin Films journal June 2012
Quantum Spin Hall Effect in Silicene and Two-Dimensional Germanium journal August 2011
Quasiparticle band structure of HgSe journal April 1998
Quasiparticle band structures of β -HgS, HgSe, and HgTe journal November 2011
Strain-induced topological insulator phase transition in HgSe journal February 2013
Role of metal d states in II-VI semiconductors journal May 1988
Half-Heusler topological insulators: A first-principles study with the Tran-Blaha modified Becke-Johnson density functional journal December 2010
Strain tuning of topological band order in cubic semiconductors journal May 2012
Spin-Orbit Coupling Effects in Zinc Blende Structures journal October 1955
Hexagonal Warping Effects in the Surface States of the Topological Insulator Bi 2 Te 3 journal December 2009
Surface characterization and electronic structure of HgTe nanocrystalline thin films journal November 2005
Efficient iterative schemes for ab initio total-energy calculations using a plane-wave basis set journal October 1996
Projector augmented-wave method journal December 1994
Ground State of the Electron Gas by a Stochastic Method journal August 1980
First-principles calculations of the ferroelastic transition between rutile-type and CaCl 2 -type SiO 2 at high pressures journal October 2008
Towards efficient band structure and effective mass calculations for III-V direct band-gap semiconductors journal November 2010
Equivalent expression of Z 2 topological invariant for band insulators using the non-Abelian Berry connection journal August 2011
Electronic structure of AlFeN films exhibiting crystallographic orientation change from c- to a-axis with Fe concentrations and annealing effect journal February 2020
Aharonov-Bohm interference in topological insulator nanoribbons text January 2009
Topological Insulator Nanowires and Nanoribbons text January 2009
The quantum spin Hall effect and topological insulators text January 2010
Evidence of silicene in honeycomb structures of silicon on Ag(111) text January 2012
Strain-induced topological insulator phase transition in HgSe text January 2013
Electric Field Effect in Atomically Thin Carbon Films text January 2004
Silicon and III-V compound nanotubes: structural and electronic properties text January 2005
Experimental Observation of Quantum Hall Effect and Berry's Phase in Graphene text January 2005
Spin-orbit gap of graphene: First-principles calculations text January 2006
Quantum Spin Hall Effect and Topological Phase Transition in HgTe Quantum Wells text January 2006
Publisher's Note: Quasiparticle band structures ofβ-HgS, HgSe, and HgTe [Phys. Rev. B84, 205205 (2011)] journal November 2011
Two and one-dimensional honeycomb structures of silicon and germanium text January 2008
Hexagonal Warping Effects in the Surface States of Topological Insulator Bi$_2$Te$_3$ text January 2009

Cited By (16)

Coemergence of Dirac and multi-Weyl topological excitations in pnictide antiperovskites journal September 2018
Realizing robust large-gap quantum spin Hall state in 2D HgTe monolayer on insulating substrate journal July 2018
Semilocal exchange-correlation potentials for solid-state calculations: Current status and future directions journal September 2019
Electronic stopping power for slow ions in the low-hardness semimetal HgTe using first-principles calculations journal December 2019
2D O-PTl monolayer: a robust large bandgap topological insulator journal October 2019
Discovering two-dimensional topological insulators from high-throughput computations journal February 2019
Robustness of topologically protected edge states in quantum walk experiments with neutral atoms journal July 2016
Synthetic routes to mercury chalcogenide quantum dots journal January 2018
Interdiffusion Effects on Bandstructure in HgTe-CdTe Superlattices for VLWIR Imaging Applications journal June 2019
Structure of surface electronic states in strained mercury telluride journal April 2019
First-principles analysis for the modulation of energy band gap and optical characteristics in HgTe/CdTe superlattices journal January 2019
Fundamental limits to helical edge conductivity due to spin-phonon scattering journal June 2018
Confined electron states in two-dimensional HgTe in magnetic field: Quantum dot versus quantum ring behavior journal September 2019
Robustness of topologically protected edge states in quantum walk experiments with neutral atoms text January 2016
Fundamental limits to helical edge conductivity due to spin-phonon scattering text January 2017
Confined electron states in two-dimensional HgTe in magnetic field: Quantum-dot versus quantum-ring behavior text January 2019

Similar Records

Helical edge and surface states in HgTe quantum wells and bulk insulators
Journal Article · Tue Mar 02 00:00:00 EST 2010 · Physical Review B · OSTI ID:1259708

Robust Large Gap Two-Dimensional Topological Insulators in Hydrogenated III–V Buckled Honeycombs
Journal Article · Mon Sep 21 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · Nano Letters · OSTI ID:1259708

Quantum Spin Hall Effect and Topological Phase Transition in HgTe Quantum Wells
Journal Article · Tue Mar 02 00:00:00 EST 2010 · Science · OSTI ID:1259708