Paper detail

Exact wave functions for the edge state of a disk-shaped two dimensional topological insulator

We report the exact wave functions for the eigen state of a disk-shaped two dimensional topological insulator. The property of the edge state whose energy lies inside the bulk gap is studied. It is found that the edge state energy is affected by the radius of the disk. For a fixed angular momentum index, there is a critical disk radius below which there exists no edge state. The value of this critical radius increases as the angular momentum index increases. In the limit of large disk radius, the energy of the edge state approaches a limiting value determined by the system parameters and independent of the angular momentum index. The derivation from this limiting value is inversely proportional to the radius with a coefficient proportional to the angular momentum index. In the general case, the energy differences between two edge states with adjacent angular momentum indexes are not equal. The exact and analytical wave functions also facilitates the investigation of electronic state in other structures of the two dimensional topological insulator.