Topological Insulator State due to Finite Spin-Orbit Interaction in an Organic Dirac Fermion System

Abstract

Recently, Valenti et al. pointed out the significance of the spin-orbit interaction (SOI) in organic materials, and explained the anomalous insulating behavior of a Dirac semimetal alpha-(BEDT-TTF)2I3 at low temperatures in terms of the small SOI gap. We propose a lattice model with plausible SOI coupling, and indicate that the gapped state is a topological insulator. This model is an organic analogue of the Kane-Mele model for graphene.