Direct observation of the Dirac nodes lifting in semimetallic perovskite SrIrO3 thin films

Abstract

Perovskite SrIrO3 has long been proposed as an exotic semimetal induced by the interplay between the spin-orbit coupling and electron correlations. However, its low-lying electronic structure is still lacking. We synthesize high-quality perovskite SrIrO3 (100) films by means of oxide molecular beam epitaxy, and then systemically investigate their low energy electronic structure using in-situ angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. We find that the hole-like bands around R and the electron-like bands around U(T) intersect the Fermi level simultaneously, providing the direct evidence of the semimetallic ground state in this compound. Comparing with the density functional theory, we discover that the bandwidth of states near Fermi level is extremely small, and there exists a pronounced mixing between the Jeff = 1/2 and Jeff = 3/2 states. Moreover, our data reveal that the predicted Dirac degeneracy protected by the mirror-symmetry, which was theoretically suggested to be the key to realize the non-trivial topological properties, is actually lifted in perovskite SrIrO3 thin films. Our findings pose strong constraints on the current theoretical models for the 5d iridates.

19 pages, 5 figures

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Cited by in corpus (30)

• Symmetry Demanded Topological Nodal-line Materials
• Oxide spin-orbitronics: spin-charge interconversion and topological spin textures
• Spin-orbit semimetal SrIrO${}_3$ in the two-dimensional limit
• Dimensionality-driven metal-insulator-transition in spin-orbit coupled SrIrO${}_3$
• Theory of Large Intrinsic Spin Hall Effect in Iridate Semimetals
• Review of Spin Orbit Coupled Semimetal SrIrO3 in thin film form
• Balanced electron-hole transport in spin-orbit semimetal SrIrO3 heterostructures
• Growth and engineering of perovskite SrIrO3 thin films
• Synthesis and electronic properties of Ruddlesden-Popper strontium iridate epitaxial thin films stabilized by control of growth kinetics
• Novel spin-orbit coupling driven emergent states in iridate-based heterostructures
• Spin-orbit torque generation in NiFe/IrO2 bilayers
• Topological Properties and Functionalities in Oxide Thin Films and Interfaces
• Observation of Nonlinear Spin-Charge Conversion in the Thin Film of Nominally Centrosymmetric Dirac Semimetal SrIrO3 at Room Temperature
• Structural properties and anisotropic electronic transport in SrIrO3 films
• Coupling lattice instabilities across the interface in ultrathin oxide heterostructures
• Strange semimetal dynamics in SrIrO${}_3$
• Abrupt Enhancement of Spin-Orbit Scattering Time in Ultrathin Semimetallic SrIrO${}_3$ Close to the Metal-Insulator Transition
• Three-dimensional electronic structures and the metal-insulator transition in Ruddlesden-Popper iridates
• Anisotropy and interaction effects of strongly strained SrIrO3 thin films
• Anisotropic linear and nonlinear charge-spin conversion in topological semimetal SrIrO3
• Electron-plasmon interaction induced plasmonic-polaron band replication in epitaxial perovskite SrIrO${}_3$ films
• Isostructural Metal-Insulator Transition Driven by Dimensional-Crossover in SrIrO3 Heterostructures
• Suppression of twinning and enhanced electronic anisotropy of SrIrO3 films
• Magnetotransport of SrIrO3 films on (110) DyScO3
• Epitaxial stabilization of Sr3Ir2O7 thin films
• Growth facets of SrIrO3 Thin Films and Single Crystals
• Epitaxial growth and antiferromagnetism of Sn-substituted perovskite iridate SrIr${}_{0.8}$Sn${}_{0.2}$O${}_3$
• High-resolution ARPES endstation for in-situ electronic structure investigations at SSRF
• Strain tunable electronic ground states in two-dimensional iridate thin films
• Coexistence of insulator-like paramagnon and metallic spin-orbit exciton modes in SrIrO${}_3$