New Family of Three-Dimensional Topological Insulators with Antiperovskite Structure

All known topological insulators are crystallographically related to either the noncentrosymmetric zinc-blende HgTe-type family or to the hexagonal centrosymmetric Bi2Se3 one. Through first-principles calculations, here we show evidence that under a proper uniaxial strain cubic ternary centrosymmetric antiperovskite compounds (M3N)Bi (M=Ca, Sr, and Ba) are three-dimensional topological insulators. This proposed family of materials is chemically inert and the lattice structure is well matched to important semiconductors, which provides a rich platform to easily integrate with electronic devices.