Embedded Topological Insulators

Abstract

We present a generalization of free fermionic topological insulators that are composed of topological subsystems of differing dimensionality. We specifically focus on topological subsystems of nonzero co-dimension are embedded within a trivial insulating environment. A general procedure is described to isolate and classify such embedded topological insulators and we present three representative examples in varying dimensions and symmetry classes. Moreover, we demonstrate with concrete examples that the presence of periodically embedded topological insulators in an otherwise trivially classified system can lead to topologically non-trivial physical phenomena on crystalline defects; namely, novel topological surface/edge modes at stacking faults and partial edge dislocations.