Disorder effect in two-dimensional topological insulators

We conduct a systematic study on the disorder effect in two-dimensional (2D) topological insulators by calculating the Z₂ topological invariant. Starting from the trivial and nontrivial topological phases of the model describing HgTe/CdTe quantum wells (QWs), we introduce three different kinds of disorder into the system, including the fluctuations in the on-site potential, the hopping amplitude and the topological mass. These kinds of disorder commonly exist in HgTe/CdTe QWs grown experimentally. By explicit numerical calculations, we show that all three kinds of disorder have the similar effect: the topological phase in the system is not only robust to them, but also can be brought about by introducing them to the trivial insulator phase. These results make a further confirmation and extendability of the study on the interplay between the disorder and the topological phase.