Nonlocality and Strength of Interatomic Interactions Inducing the Topological Phonon Phase Transition

Abstract

Understanding the phonon behavior in semiconductors from a topological physics perspective provides more opportunities to uncover extraordinary physics related to phonon transport and electron-phonon interactions. While various kinds of topological phonons have been reported in different crystalline solids, their microscopic origin has not been quantitatively uncovered. In this work, four typical analytical interatomic force constant (IFC) models are employed for wurtzite GaN and AlN to help establish the relationships between phonon topology and real-space IFCs. In particular, various nearest neighbor IFCs, i.e., different levels of nonlocality, and IFC strength controlled by characteristic coefficients, can be achieved in these models. The results demonstrate that changes in the strength of both the IFCs and nonlocal interactions can induce phonon phase transitions in GaN and AlN, leading to the disappearance of existing Weyl phonons and the appearance of new Weyl phonons. These new Weyl phonons are the result of a band reversal and have a Chern number of 1. Most of them are located in the kz=0 plane in pairs, while some of them are inside or at the boundary of the irreducible Brillouin zone. Among the various Weyl points observed, certain ones remain identical in both materials, while others exhibit variability depending on the particular case. Compared to the strength of the IFC, nonlocal interactions show much more significant effects in inducing the topological phonon phase transition, especially in cases modeled by the IFC model and SW potential. The larger number of 3NN atoms provides more space for variations in the topological phonon phase of wurtzite AlN than in GaN, resulting in a greater abundance of changes in AlN.