Engineering Spin Hall Conductivity and Topological Character in Group-IV Tellurides and a Family of Weyl Semimetals

The discovery of topological insulators and topological semimetals has become one of the leading fields of research in condensed matter physics. The origin of these emerging quantum properties can be traced to the topology of the bulk band structure and the interplay with spin-orbit coupling. In particular, the ability to engineer band topologies would open the way to the design of materials with novel functionalities. In this work, we focus on the spin-Hall current as the main physical property emerging from the topology of the bands: through the interplay of strain and ferroelectricity, we demonstrate the emergence of giant spin-Hall effect in Group-IV Tellurides. Finally, we will also discuss the results of a recent investigation on a family of Weyl semimetals that was isolated through a high-throughput screening of materials in the AFLOW database. All the results, including the searching and characterization of topological materials, have been obtained using the PAOFLOW package, which is integrated into the AFLOWπ framework.