No Arabic abstract
Coexistence of topological elements in a topological metal/semimetal (TM) has gradually attracted attentions. However, the non-topological factors always mess up the Fermi surface and cover interesting topological properties. Here, we find that Ba3Si4 is a clean TM in which coexists nodal-chain network, intersecting nodal rings (INRs) and triple points, in the absence of spin-orbit coupling (SOC). Moreover, the nodal rings in the topological phase exhibit diverse types: from type-I, type-II to type-III rings according to band dispersions. All the topological elements are generated by crossings of three energy bands, and thus they are correlated rather than mutual independence. When some structural symmetries are eliminated by an external strain, the topological phase evolves into another phase including Hopf link, one-dimensional nodal chain and new INRs.
Recently, a distinct topological semimetal, nodal-net semimetal, has been identified by Wang et al. through ab initio calculations [Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 026402 (2018)]. The authors claimed that a new body-centered tetragonal carbon allotrope with I4/mmm symmetry, termed bct-C40, can host this novel state exhibiting boxed-astrisk shaped nodal nets. In this Comment, we demonstrate that bct-C40 is in fact a nodal surface semimetal, the concept of which has been proposed as early as 2016 [Phys. Rev. B 93, 085427 (2016)].
The theory of symmetry indicators has enabled database searches for topological materials in normal conducting phases, which has led to several encyclopedic topological material databases. Here, based on recently developed symmetry indicators for superconductors, we report our comprehensive search for topological and nodal superconductors among nonmagnetic materials in Inorganic Crystal Structure Database. A myriad of topological superconductors with exotic boundary states are discovered. When materials are symmetry-enforced nodal superconductors, positions and shapes of the nodes are also identified. These data are aggregated at Database of Topological and Nodal Supercoductors. We also provide a subroutine Topological Supercon, which allows users to examine the topological nature in the superconducting phase of any material themselves by uploading the result of first-principles calculations as an input. Our database and subroutine, when combined with experiments, will help us understand the unconventional pairing mechanism and facilitate realizations of the long-sought Majorana fermions promising for topological quantum computations.
Since the proposal of monopole Cooper pairing in Ref. [1], considerable research efforts have been dedicated to the study of Copper pair order parameters constrained (or obstructed) by the nontrivial normal-state band topology at Fermi surfaces. In the current work, we propose a new type of topologically obstructed Cooper pairing, which we call Euler obstructed Cooper pairing. The Euler obstructed Cooper pairing widely exists between two Fermi surfaces with nontrivial band topology characterized by nonzero Euler numbers; such Fermi surfaces can exist in the $PT$-protected spinless-Dirac/nodal-line semimetals with negligible spin-orbit coupling, where $PT$ is the space-time inversion symmetry. An Euler obstructed pairing channel must have pairing nodes on the pairing-relevant Fermi surfaces, and the total winding number of the pairing nodes is determined by the sum or difference of the Euler numbers on the Fermi surfaces. In particular, we find that when the normal state is nonmagnetic and the pairing is weak, a sufficiently-dominant Euler obstructed pairing channel with zero total momentum leads to nodal superconductivity. If the Fermi surface splitting is small, the resultant nodal superconductor hosts hinge Majorana zero modes, featuring the first class of higher-order nodal superconductivity originating from the topologically obstructed Cooper pairing. The possible dominance of the Euler obstructed pairing channel near the superconducting transition and the robustness of the hinge Majorana zero modes against disorder are explicitly demonstrated using effective or tight-binding models.
Topological metal/semimetals (TMs) have emerged as a new frontier in the field of quantum materials. A few two-dimensional (2D) boron sheets have been suggested as Dirac materials, however, to date TMs made of three-dimensional (3D) boron structures have not been found. Herein, by means of systematic first principles computations, we discovered that a rather stable 3D boron allotrope, namely 3D-alpha boron, is a nodal-chain semimetal. In the momentum space, six nodal lines and rings contact each other and form a novel spindle nodal chain. This 3D-alpha boron can be formed by stacking 2D wiggle alpha boron sheets, which are also nodal-ring semimetals. In addition, our chemical bond analysis revealed that the topological properties of the 3D and 2D boron structures are related to the pi bonds between boron atoms, however, the bonding characteristics are different from those in the 2D and 3D carbon structures.
Carbon, a basic versatile element in our universe, exhibits rich varieties of allotropic phases, most of which possess promising nontrivial topological fermions. In this work, we identify a distinct topological phonon phase in a realistic carbon allotrope with a body-centered cubic structure, termed bcc-C$_{8}$. We show by symmetry arguments and effective model analysis that there are three intersecting phonon nodal rings perpendicular to each other in different planes. The intersecting phonon nodal rings are protected by time-reversal and inversion symmetries, which quantize the corresponding Berry phase into integer multiples of $pi$. Unlike the electron systems, the phonon nodal rings in bcc-C$_{8}$ are guaranteed to remain gapless due to the lack of spin-orbital coupling. The nearly flat drumhead surface states projected on semi-infinite (001) and (110) surfaces of bcc-C$_{8}$ are clearly visible. Our findings not only discover promising nodal ring phonons in a carbon allotrope, but also provide emergent avenues for exploring topological phonons beyond fermionic electrons in carbon-allotropic structures with attractive features.