Journal
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
Volume 10, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-08203-9
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Funding
- 973 Program [2017YFA0303200]
- NSFC [60825402, 11574217]
- ASU startup grant
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Excitonic insulators are insulating states formed by the coherent condensation of electron and hole pairs into BCS-like states. Isotropic spatial wave functions are commonly considered for excitonic condensates since the attractive interaction among the electrons and the holes in semiconductors usually leads to s-wave excitons. Here, we propose a new type of excitonic insulator that exhibits order parameter with p + ip symmetry and is characterized by a chiral Chern number C-c = 1/2. This state displays the parity anomaly, which results in two novel topological properties: fractionalized excitations with e/2 charge at defects and a spontaneous in-plane magnetization. The topological insulator surface state is a promising platform to realize the topological excitonic insulator. With the spin-momentum locking, the interband optical pumping can renormalize the surface electrons and drive the system towards the proposed p + ip instability.
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