0000000000147403
AUTHOR
Haijun Zhang
Topological Insulators from a Chemist's Perspective
Topology and chemistry are deeply entangled subjects, whichmanifests in the way chemists like to think and approachproblems. Although not at first glance, topology allows thecategorizationoffundamentalinherentpropertiesofthehugenumber of different chemical compounds, carving out theunique features of a class of materials of different complexity,a topic which Turro worked out in his treatise on geometricaland topological thinking in chemistry.
Topological Insulators from a Chemist’s Perspective
Topology and chemistry are deeply entangled subjects, whichmanifests in the way chemists like to think and approachproblems. Although not at first glance, topology allows thecategorizationoffundamentalinherentpropertiesofthehugenumber of different chemical compounds, carving out theunique features of a class of materials of different complexity,a topic which Turro worked out in his treatise on geometricaland topological thinking in chemistry.
Topological Insulators in Ternary Compounds with a Honeycomb Lattice
One of the most exciting subjects in solid state physics is a single layer of graphite which exhibits a variety of unconventional novel properties. The key feature of its electronic structure are linear dispersive bands which cross in a single point at the Fermi energy. This so-called Dirac cone is closely related to the surface states of the recently discovered topological insulators. The ternary compounds, such as LiAuSe and KHgSb with a honeycomb structure of their Au-Se and Hg-Sb layers feature band inversion very similar to HgTe which is a strong precondition for existence of the topological surface states. In contrast to graphene with two Dirac cones at K and K' points, these material…