Fluctuations and correlations of local topological order parameters in disordered two-dimensional topological insulators

DOI

Two-dimensional topological insulators are characterized by an insulating bulk and conductive edge states protected by the nontrivial topology of the bulk electronic structure. They remain robust against moderate disorder until Anderson localization occurs and destroys the topological phase. Interestingly, disorder can also induce a topological phase—known as a topological Anderson insulator—starting from an otherwise pristine trivial phase. While topological invariants are generally regarded as global quantities, we argue that space-resolved topological markers can act as local order parameters, revealing the role of fluctuations and correlations in the local topology under Anderson disorder and vacancies. With this perspective, we perform numerical simulations of disorder-driven topological phase transitions in the Haldane and Kane-Mele models, using supercells with both open and periodic boundary conditions. We find that short-scale fluctuations of topological markers vanish upon coarse-graining, except at the topological phase transition, where their correlation length peaks and large-scale fluctuations remain.

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.24435/materialscloud:3w-0e
Related Identifier https://archive.materialscloud.org/communities/mcarchive
Related Identifier https://doi.org/10.24435/materialscloud:h0-x0
Metadata Access https://archive.materialscloud.org/oai2d?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_dc&identifier=oai:materialscloud.org:2617
Provenance
Creator Favata, Roberta; Baù, Nicolas; Marrazzo, Antimo
Publisher Materials Cloud
Contributor Favata, Roberta; Baù, Nicolas; Marrazzo, Antimo
Publication Year 2025
Rights info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess; Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode
OpenAccess true
Contact archive(at)materialscloud.org
Representation
Language English
Resource Type info:eu-repo/semantics/other
Format application/zip; text/plain; text/markdown
Discipline Materials Science and Engineering