We present a generalization of free-fermionic topological insulators that are composed of topological subsystems of differing dimensionality. These topological subsystems of nonzero codimension are embedded within a trivial insulating environment. A general procedure is described to isolate and classify such embedded topological insulators and we present three representative examples in varying dimensions and symmetry classes. Moreover, we demonstrate with concrete examples that the presence of periodically placed embedded topological insulators in an otherwise trivially classified system can lead to topologically nontrivial physical phenomena on crystalline defects, namely, topological surface/edge modes at stacking faults and partial edge dislocations.

• Received 16 May 2018
• Revised 6 February 2019

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.100.115126