Non-symmorphic band degeneracy at the Fermi level in ZrSiTe

Andreas Topp, Judith M. Lippmann, Andrei Varykhalov, Viola Duppel, Bettina V. Lotsch, Christian R. Ast, Leslie M. Schoop

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

96 Scopus citations

Abstract

Non-symmorphic materials have recently been predicted to exhibit many different exotic features in their electronic structures. These originate from forced band degeneracies caused by the non-symmorphic symmetry, which not only creates the possibility to realize Dirac semimetals, but also recently resulted in the prediction of novel quasiparticles beyond the usual Dirac, Weyl or Majorana fermions, which can only exist in the solid state. Experimental realization of non-symmorphic materials that have the Fermi level located at the degenerate point is difficult, however, due to the requirement of an odd band filling. In order to investigate the effect of forced band degeneracies on the transport behavior, a material that has such a degeneracy at or close to the Fermi level is desired. Here, we show with angular resolved photoemission experiments supported by density functional calculations, that ZrSiTe hosts several fourfold degenerate Dirac crossings at the X point, resulting from non-symmorphic symmetry. These crossings form a Dirac line node along XR, which is located almost directly at the Fermi level and shows almost no dispersion in energy. ZrSiTe is thus the first real material that allows for transport measurements investigating Dirac fermions that originate from non-symmorphic symmetry.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number125014
JournalNew Journal of Physics
Volume18
Issue number12
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2016
Externally publishedYes

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • General Physics and Astronomy

Keywords

  • ARPES
  • Dirac semimetal
  • non-symmorphic symmetry

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