Amorphization-induced topological and insulator-metal transitions in bidimensional <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mrow> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>Bi</mml:mi> <mml:mi>x</mml:mi> </mml:msub> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>Sb</mml:mi> <mml:
Bismuth has been shown to be topological in its different allotropes and compounds, with one of the most notable examples being the Bi-Sb alloy, the first 3D topological insulator ever discovered. In this paper, we explore two-dimensional alloys of Bi and Sb, both crystalline and amorphous, to determine the critical concentrations that render the alloys topological. For the amorphous alloy, we determine the effect of structural disorder on its topological properties, remarkably observing a trivial to topological transition as disorder increases. The alloys are modeled using a Slater-Koster tight-binding model and the topological behavior is assessed through the entanglement spectrum together with artificial neural networks. Additionally, we perform electronic transport calculations with results compatible with those of the entanglement spectrum, which, furthermore, reveal an insulator to metal transition in the highly disordered regime.
Authors
- Alejandro José Uría-Álvarez (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6668-7333)
- J. J. Palacios (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2378-0866)
Institutions
- Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (ES)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Physical Review Research
- Published
- 2025-11-08
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1103/z5tm-cvgn
- Primary Topic
- Topological Materials and Phenomena
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00