Subscribe to the gold package and get unlimited access to Shamra Academy
Register a new userMagneto-infrared spectroscopy of Landau levels and Zeeman splitting of three-dimensional massless Dirac Fermions in ZrTe$_5$
296
0
0.0
(
0
)
Ask ChatGPT about the research
No Arabic abstract
We present a magneto-infrared spectroscopy study on a newly identified three-dimensional (3D) Dirac semimetal ZrTe$_5$. We observe clear transitions between Landau levels and their further splitting under magnetic field. Both the sequence of transitions and their field dependence follow quantitatively the relation expected for 3D emph{massless} Dirac fermions. The measurement also reveals an exceptionally low magnetic field needed to drive the compound into its quantum limit, demonstrating that ZrTe$_5$ is an extremely clean system and ideal platform for studying 3D Dirac fermions. The splitting of the Landau levels provides a direct and bulk spectroscopic evidence that a relatively weak magnetic field can produce a sizeable Zeeman effect on the 3D Dirac fermions, which lifts the spin degeneracy of Landau levels. Our analysis indicates that the compound evolves from a Dirac semimetal into a topological line-node semimetal under current magnetic field configuration.
rate research
Read More
Three dimensional (3D) topological Dirac materials are under intensive study recently. The layered compound ZrTe$_5$ has been suggested to be one of them by transport and ARPES experiments. Here, we perform infrared reflectivity measurement to investigate the underlying physics of this material. The derived optical conductivity exhibits linear increasing with frequency below normal interband transitions, which provides the first optical spectroscopic proof of a 3D Dirac semimetal. Apart from that, the plasma edge shifts dramatically to lower energy upon temperature cooling, which might be associated with the consequence of lattice parameter shrinking. In addition, an extremely sharp peak shows up in the frequency dependent optical conductivity, indicating the presence of a Van Hove singularity in the joint density of state.
The recent theoretical prediction and experimental realization of topological insulators (TI) has generated intense interest in this new state of quantum matter. The surface states of a three-dimensional (3D) TI such as Bi_2Te_3, Bi_2Se_3 and Sb_2Te_3 consist of a single massless Dirac cones. Crossing of the two surface state branches with opposite spins in the materials is fully protected by the time reversal (TR) symmetry at the Dirac points, which cannot be destroyed by any TR invariant perturbation. Recent advances in thin-film growth have permitted this unique two-dimensional electron system (2DES) to be probed by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and spectroscopy (STS). The intriguing TR symmetry protected topological states were revealed in STM experiments where the backscattering induced by non-magnetic impurities was forbidden. Here we report the Landau quantization of the topological surface states in Bi_2Se_3 in magnetic field by using STM/STS. The direct observation of the discrete Landau levels (LLs) strongly supports the 2D nature of the topological states and gives direct proof of the nondegenerate structure of LLs in TI. We demonstrate the linear dispersion of the massless Dirac fermions by the square-root dependence of LLs on magnetic field. The formation of LLs implies the high mobility of the 2DES, which has been predicted to lead to topological magneto-electric effect of the TI.
We have investigated the absorption spectrum of multilayer graphene in high magnetic fields. The low energy part of the spectrum of electrons in graphene is well described by the relativistic Dirac equation with a linear dispersion relation. However, at higher energies (>500 meV) a deviation from the ideal behavior of Dirac particles is observed. At an energy of 1.25 eV, the deviation from linearity is 40 meV. This result is in good agreement with the theoretical model, which includes trigonal warping of the Fermi surface and higher-order band corrections. Polarization-resolved measurements show no observable electron-hole asymmetry.
The effect of disorder on the Landau levels of massless Dirac fermions is examined for the cases with and without the fermion doubling. To tune the doubling a tight-binding model having a complex transfer integral is adopted to shift the energies of two Dirac cones, which is theoretically proposed earlier and realizable in cold atoms in an optical lattice. In the absence of the fermion doubling, the $n=0$ Landau level is shown to exhibit an anomalous sharpness even if the disorder is uncorrelated in space (i.e., large K-K scattering). This anomaly occurs when the disorder respects the chiral symmetry of the Dirac cone.
A topological concern is addressed in view of the extensively and intensively studied topological phases of condensed matter. In this realm, the phases with topological order cannot be characterized by symmetry alone. Moreover, the relevant phase transitions do occur without spontaneous symmetry breaking, beyond the scope of Landaus theory. The first realization of such phases is the discovery of the integer quantum Hall effect (QHE), which was followed soon by a topological interpretation. Later on, a distinct, half-integer QHE was also found from graphene, which has almost spin degeneracy described by $SU(2)$ symmetry. The previous theoretical predictions were realized in this finding. It has been well understood that the anomaly of this half-integer QHE originates from the presence of $2$D massless Dirac fermions around the zero energy with respect to the original Dirac points (DPs). The very characteristic lies in that there exists a topologically robust zero-mode LL that is a constant function of the perpendicular magnetic field. More deeply, this zero-mode LL is protected by the local chiral symmetry (CS), against CS preserving perturbations provided that intervalley scattering between the double DPs is inhibited, where the CS arises from the global sublattice symmetry in spinless graphene. Since massless Dirac particles are broadly present in condensed matter with various symmetries, not to mention Dirac bosonic systems, it is of interest to see how about the situations in other systems with $2$D massless Dirac fermions. We address several notes in a topological viewpoint on the presence of $2$D massless Dirac fermions in $3$D layered systems.In particular, we focus on the zero-mode LL since this LL signifies $2$D massless Dirac fermions.
Log in to be able to interact and post comments
comments
Fetching comments
Sign in to be able to follow your search criteria
