Strain-Enabled Chiral Phase and Berry Curvature in Wurtzite Semiconductors

Topological materials harbor a variety of intriguing physical phenomena that not only enrich the basic understanding of materials physics but also inspire novel device design for applications in microelectronics and quantum technology. However, topological materials are often chemically/structurally complex and/or difficult to synthesize. In this work, we present a theoretical approach of using low-symmetry strain to induce chiral and Kramers-Weyl phases in wurtzite materials (e.g. ZnO). We reveal that the topological charge, characterized by Chern number, can be tuned by the direction of the uniaxial force. We show the creation and annihilation of Berry curvature and the tuning of the spin-momentum relation under controlled strain tensor. These findings provide an approach for converting topologically trivial polar semiconductors to topologically nontrivial phases, thereby significantly expanding the materials space for studying topological physics and technology.