Probing the Topological Phase Transition via Density Oscillations in Silicene and Germanene

Abstract

We theoretically investigated two kinds of density oscillations: the Friedel oscillation and collective excitation in the silicene and germanene within random phase approximation, and found that the tunable spin-valley coupled band structure could lead to some exotic properties in such two phenomena. Based on the exact analytical and numerical analysis, we demonstrated that the beating of screened potential as well as the undamped plasmon mode can be taken as fingerprints of topological phase transition in doped silicene and doped germanene. Thus our proposal here establishes the connection between the topological phase transition and the density oscillations that can be accessed by a variety of experimental techniques.