Anderson localization and topological transition in Chern insulators

We analyze the topological transition and localization evolution of disordered two-dimensional systems with nontrivial topology based on bipartite lattices. Chern insulators with broken time-reversal symmetry show nonstandard behavior for disorder realizations selectively distributed on only one of the sublattices. The Chern number survives to a much stronger disorder strength (one order of magnitude higher) than in the equally distributed disordered case, and the final state in the strongly disordered case is metallic.
E.C. acknowledges the financial support of Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT)-Portugal through Grant No. EXPL/FIS-NAN/1720/2013. This research was supported in part by the Spanish Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte (MECD) Grants No. FIS2011-23713 and No. PIB2010BZ-00512, the Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid (CAM) MAD2D-CM Program (S2013/MIT-3007), and the European Union Seventh Framework Programme under Grant Agreement No. 604391 Graphene Flagship FPA2012-32828agship. info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/FP7/604391