On the numerical computation of electron transport through a topological crystalline insulator

Abstract

In this thesis we aim to compute the conductance of a disordered nonstandard topological insulator numerically. We test several algorithms for this purpose and argue that the recursive Green’s function algorithm is convenient for our purposes. We test the stability of the conductance under disorder of a specific topological crystalline insulator and find that in this case crystalline symmetries do not suffice to make the boundary modes robust.