101. Metacinnabar (β-HgS): a strong 3D topological insulator with highly anisotropic surface states
- Author
-
Jeroen van den Brink, Franccois Virot, Roland Hayn, and Manuel Richter
- Subjects
Physics ,Surface (mathematics) ,Condensed Matter - Materials Science ,Condensed matter physics ,Cone (topology) ,Topological insulator ,General Physics and Astronomy ,Electronic structure ,Dispersion (water waves) ,Anisotropy ,Symmetry (physics) ,Surface states - Abstract
We establish the presence of topologically protected edge states on the (001) surface of HgS in the zinc-blende structure using density-functional electronic structure calculations. The Dirac point of the edge state cone is very close to the bulk valence band maximum. The Dirac cone is extremely anisotropic with a very large electron velocity along one diagonal of the surface elementary cell x' and a nearly flat dispersion in the perpendicular direction y'. The strong anisotropy originates from a broken fourfold rotoinversion symmetry at the surface., Comment: Phys. Rev. Lett., in press
- Published
- 2011