Strain-induced topological phase transition with inversion of the in-plane electric polarization in tiny-gap...

Our density functional theory calculations show that tiny-gap semiconductor SiGe monolayer is a quantum valley Hall insulator with a spontaneous electric polarization and, under a small biaxial strain, undergoes a topological phase transition between the states with opposite valley Chern numbers. The topological phase transition entails abrupt inversion of the in-plane electric polarization corresponding to inversion of the sublattice pseudospin polarization, while the out-of-plane electric polarization shows a linear response to the biaxial strain as well as to the perpendicular electric field regardless of the phase transition. Thus, the quantum valley Hall state entails in-plane ferroelectricity corresponding to a sublattice pseudospin ferromagnetism.