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Back Cover: Topological insulators from the perspective of first‐principles calculations (Phys. Status Solidi RRL 1–2/2013)
Author(s) -
Zhang Haijun,
Zhang ShouCheng
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
physica status solidi (rrl) – rapid research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.786
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1862-6270
pISSN - 1862-6254
DOI - 10.1002/pssr.201390006
Subject(s) - topological insulator , gapless playback , spintronics , physics , topology (electrical circuits) , lattice (music) , cover (algebra) , invariant (physics) , surface states , theoretical physics , condensed matter physics , quantum mechanics , surface (topology) , mathematics , engineering , geometry , combinatorics , ferromagnetism , acoustics , mechanical engineering
Topological insulators are new quantum states with helical gapless edge or surface states inside the bulk band gap. These topological boundary states are protected by topological invariants, and they are robust against weak time‐reversal invariant perturbations without closing the bulk band gap, such as lattice distortions and non‐magnetic impurities. Importantly, these boundary states can avoid back‐scattering at impurities, so topological insulators are expected to a broad range of applications from spintronics to the energy. First‐principles calculations have been widely used to predict topological insulators with great success. In their review on pp. 72–81 , Haijun Zhang and Shoucheng Zhang summarize the current progress in this field from the perspective of first‐principles calculations. First, the basic concepts of topological insulators and the frequently‐used techniques within first‐principles calculations are briefly introduced. Secondly, the authors summarize general methodologies to search for new topological insulators. In the last part, they generally classify topological insulators into three types with s–p, p–p and d–f band inversions, and discuss some representative examples for each type.