Topological semimetals in the SnTe material class: Nodal lines and Weyl points

Abstract

We theoretically show that IV-VI semiconducting compounds with low-temperature rhombohedral crystal structure represent a new potential platform for topological semimetals. By means of minimal $\mathbf{k}\cdot \mathbf{p}$ models we find that the two-step structural symmetry reduction of the high-temperature rocksalt crystal structure, comprising a rhombohedral distortion along the [111] direction followed by a relative shift of the cation and anion sublattices, gives rise to topologically protected Weyl semimetal and nodal line semimetal phases. We derive general expressions for the nodal features and apply our results to SnTe showing explicitly how Weyl points and nodal lines emerge in this system. Experimentally, the topological semimetals could potentially be realized in the low-temperature ferroelectric phase of SnTe, GeTe and related alloys.

arXiv comment5 pages + supplemental material

References in corpus (53)

• Electronic Structure of Pyrochlore Iridates: From Topological Dirac Metal to Mott Insulator
• Weyl and Dirac Semimetals in Three Dimensional Solids
• Discovery of a Weyl Fermion Semimetal and Topological Fermi Arcs
• Type-II Weyl Semimetals
• Discovery of a Three-dimensional Topological Dirac Semimetal, Na3Bi
• Weyl Semimetal in a Topological Insulator Multilayer
• Dirac semimetal and topological phase transitions in A3Bi (A=Na, K, Rb)
• Topological Materials: Weyl Semimetals
• Dirac semimetal in three dimensions
• Experimental discovery of Weyl semimetal TaAs
• Topological nodal semimetals
• Theoretical Discovery/Prediction: Weyl Semimetal states in the TaAs material (TaAs, NbAs, NbP, TaP) class
• Chern semi-metal and Quantized Anomalous Hall Effect in HgCr2Se4
• Topological Crystalline Insulators in the SnTe Material Class
• Weyl semimetal phase in non-centrosymmetric transition metal monophosphides
• Chern Numbers in Discretized Brillouin Zone: Efficient Method of Computing (Spin) Hall Conductances
• Beyond Dirac and Weyl fermions: Unconventional quasiparticles in conventional crystals
• Phase transition between the quantum spin Hall and insulator phases in 3D: emergence of a topological gapless phase
• Observation of Weyl nodes in TaAs
• Discovery of a Weyl Fermion semimetal state in NbAs
• Topological nodal line semimetals with and without spin-orbital coupling
• Experimental observation of topological Fermi arcs in type-II Weyl semimetal MoTe2
• Topological nodal line semimetals
• Topological Semimetals
• Quantized circular photogalvanic effect in Weyl semimetals
• Dirac Fermions in Solids - from High Tc cuprates and Graphene to Topological Insulators and Weyl Semimetals
• Topological semi-metals with line nodes and drumhead surface states
• Chiral anomaly and transport in Weyl metals
• Time-reversal invariant realization of the Weyl semimetal phase
• Classification of reflection symmetry protected topological semimetals and nodal superconductors
• Drumhead Surface States and Topological Nodal-Line Fermions in TlTaSe2
• Observation of Weyl nodes and Fermi arcs in TaP
• Experimental signatures of the mixed axial-gravitational anomaly in the Weyl semimetal NbP
• Symmetry-protected ideal Weyl semimetal in HgTe-class materials
• Giant Planar Hall Effect in Topological Metals
• Topological Nodal Line Semimetals in CaP3 family of materials
• TaIrTe4 a ternary Type-II Weyl semi-metal
• Topological nodal-line semimetals in alkaline-earth stannides, germanides and silicides
• Spectroscopic Evidence of Type II Weyl Semimetal State in WTe2
• Friedel oscillations due to Fermi arcs in Weyl semimetals
• Prediction of a Weyl Semimetal in Hg${}_{1-x-y}$Cd${}_x$Mn${}_y$Te
• Pressure-induced Topological Phase Transitions in Rock-salt Chalcogenides
• A pressure-induced topological phase with large Berry curvature in Pb${}_{1-x}$Sn${}_x$Te
• Intertwined Rashba, Dirac and Weyl Fermions in Hexagonal Hyperferroelectrics
• Conversion rules for Weyl points and nodal lines in topological media
• Anomalous transport properties of Dirac and Weyl semimetals
• Quantum anomalies in nodal line semimetals
• Qsymm: Algorithmic symmetry finding and symmetric Hamiltonian generation
• Tin telluride: a weakly co-elastic metal
• Generic coexistence of Fermi arcs and Dirac cones on the surface of time-reversal invariant Weyl semimetals
• Alloy broadening of the transition to the non-trivial topological phase of Pb_{1-x}Sn_{x}Te
• Weyl Ferroelectric Semimetal
• Synthesizing Weyl semimetals in weak topological insulator and topological crystalline insulator multilayers

Cited by in corpus (31)

• Berry Curvature Dipole in Strained Graphene: a Fermi Surface Warping Effect
• Nonlinear Hall effect with time-reversal symmetry: Theory and material realizations
• Anomalous Planar Hall Effect in Two-Dimensional Trigonal Crystals
• Chiral Phonons with Giant Magnetic Moments in a Topological Crystalline Insulator
• Designing three-dimensional flat bands in nodal-line semimetals
• Classification of crystalline insulators without symmetry indicators: atomic and fragile topological phases in twofold rotation symmetric systems
• First principles calculation of shift current in chalcopyrite semiconductor ZnSnP${}_2$
• Disorder driven multifractality transition in Weyl nodal loops
• Orbital design of Berry curvature: pinch points and giant dipoles induced by crystal fields
• Evolution of electronic states and emergence of superconductivity in the polar semiconductor GeTe by doping valence-skipping In
• Nonlinear Hall effect induced by internal Coulomb interaction and phase relaxation process in a four-terminal system with time-reversal symmetry
• Gate-dependent non-linear Hall effect at room temperature in topological semimetal GeTe
• Fundamental Distinction between Intrinsic and Extrinsic Nonlinear Thermal Hall Effects
• A Novel Ferroelectric Rashba Semiconductor
• Spin-orbit insulating phase in SnTe cubic nanowires: consequences on the topological surface states
• Observation of Weyl and Dirac fermions at smooth topological Volkov-Pankratov heterojunctions
• Topological insulators and higher-order topological insulators from gauge-invariant 1D lines
• Spin-polarization of topological crystalline and normal insulator Pb${}_{1-x}$Sn${}_x$Se (111) epilayers probed by photoelectron spectroscopy
• Spin and charge transport in topological nodal-line semimetals
• Impurity-induced resonant states in topological nodal-line semimetals
• Miniband engineering and topological phase transitions in topological - normal insulator superlattices
• Surface-dependent Majorana vortex phases in topological crystalline insulators
• Versatile electronic states in epitaxial thin films of (Sn-Pb-In)Te: from topological crystalline insulator and polar semimetal to superconductor
• Reentrant proximity-induced superconductivity for GeTe semimetal
• Delocalization of topological surface states by diagonal disorder in nodal loop semimetals
• Strong electron-phonon coupling in 3D tungsten nitride and coexistence of intrinsic superconductivity and topological nodal line in its 2D limit
• Pentagonal nanowires from topological crystalline insulators: a platform for intrinsic core-shell nanowires and higher-order topology
• Topological phase diagram of Pb1-xSnxSe1-yTey
• Surface spin polarization in the magnetic response of GeTe Rashba ferroelectric
• Spin-valve effect for spin-polarized surface states in topological semimetals
• Coexistence of Rashba and Dirac dispersions on the surface of centrosymmetric topological insulator decorated with transition metals