Fractal growth of higher-order topological insulators

Abstract: Understanding crystal growth and morphology is a fundamental issue in condensed matter physics. In this work, we reveal the fractal morphology of growing crystals of higher-order topological insulators and show that the corners of the crystals grow preferentially compared to the edges in the presence of the corner states. We further demonstrate that when we compare the crystal shape of the higher-order topological insulator with that of the trivial insulator with the same value of the fractal dimension $D_f$, the former has a smaller value of the fractal dimension of coastlines $D_{f,c}$ than the latter. This indicates that, for crystals with a similar degree of corner development, those in the higher-order topological phase have smoother edges. Because the relationship between the area and the perimeter of the crystals is governed by the ratio of these fractal dimensions, the higher-order topological insulator and the trivial insulator exhibit distinct perimeter-area relationships.