Weak topological insulator with protected gapless helical states

Abstract

A workable model for describing dislocation lines introduced into a three-dimensional topological insulator is proposed. We show how fragile surface Dirac cones of a weak topological insulator evolve into protected gapless helical modes confined to the vicinity of dislocation line. It is demonstrated that surface Dirac cones of a topological insulator (either strong or weak) acquire a finite-size energy gap, when the surface is deformed into a cylinder penetrating the otherwise surface-less system. We show that when a dislocation with a non-trivial Burgers vector is introduced, the finite-size energy gap play the role of stabilizing the one-dimensional gapless states.