No Arabic abstract
Knowing the band structure of materials is one of the prerequisites to understand their properties. Therefore, especially in the last decades, angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) has become a highly demanded experimental tool to investigate the band structure. However, especially in thin film materials with a layered structure and several capping layers, access to the electronic structure by ARPES is limited. Therefore, several alternative methods to obtain the required information have been suggested. Here, we directly invert the results by cyclotron resonance experiments to obtain the band structure of a two-dimensional (2D) material. This procedure is applied to the mercury telluride quantum well with critical thickness which is characterized by a 2D electron gas with linear dispersion relations. The Dirac-like band structure in this material could be mapped both on the electron and on the hole side of the band diagram. In this material, purely linear dispersion of the hole-like carriers is in contrast to detectable quadratic corrections for the electrons.
Dirac nodal line semimetals (DNLSs) host relativistic quasiparticles in their one-dimensional (1D) Dirac nodal line (DNL) bands that are protected by certain crystalline symmetries. Their novel low-energy fermion quasiparticle excitations and transport properties invite studies of relativistic physics in the solid state where their linearly dispersing Dirac bands cross at continuous lines with four-fold degeneracy. In materials studied up to now, the four-fold degeneracy, however, has been vulnerable to suppression by the ubiquitous spin-orbit coupling (SOC). Despite the current effort to discover 3D DNLSs that are robust to SOC by theory, positive experimental evidence is yet to emerge. In 2D DNLSs, because of the decreased total density of states as compared with their 3D counterparts, it is anticipated that their physical properties would be dominated by the electronic states defined by the DNL. It has been even more challenging, however, to discover robust 2D DNLSs against SOC because of their lowered symmetry; no such materials have yet been predicted by theory. By combining molecular beam epitaxy growth, STM, nc-AFM characterisation, with DFT calculations and space group theory analysis, here we reveal a novel class of 2D crystalline DNLSs that host the exact symmetry that protects them against SOC. The discovered quantum material is a brick phase 3-AL Bi(110), whose symmetry protection and thermal stability are imparted by the compressive vdW epitaxial growth on black phosphorus substrates. The BP substrate templates the growth of 3-AL Bi(110) nano-islands in a non-symmorphic space group structure. This crystalline symmetry protects the DNL electronic phase against SOC independent of any orbital or elemental factors. We theoretically establish that this intrinsic symmetry imparts a general, robust protection of DNL in a series of isostructural 2D quantum materials.
Low-dimensional materials differ from their bulk counterpart in many respects. In particular, the screening of the Coulomb interaction is strongly reduced, which can have important consequences such as the significant increase of exciton binding energies. In bulk materials the binding energy is used as an indicator in optical spectra to distinguish different kinds of excitons, but this is not possible in low-dimensional materials, where the binding energy is large and comparable in size for excitons of very different localization. Here we demonstrate that the exciton band structure, which can be accessed experimentally, instead provides a powerful way to identify the exciton character. By comparing the ab initio solution of the many-body Bethe-Salpeter equation for graphane and single-layer hexagonal BN, we draw a general picture of the exciton dispersion in two-dimensional materials, highlighting the different role played by the exchange electron-hole interaction and by the electronic band structure. Our interpretation is substantiated by a prediction for phosphorene.
The electronic structure of two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors can be significantly altered by screening effects, either from free charge carriers in the material itself, or by environmental screening from the surrounding medium. The physical properties of 2D semiconductors placed in a heterostructure with other 2D materials are therefore governed by a complex interplay of both intra- and inter-layer interactions. Here, using time- and angle-resolved photoemission, we are able to isolate both the layer-resolved band structure and, more importantly, the transient band structure evolution of a model 2D heterostructure formed of a single layer of MoS$_2$ on graphene. Our results reveal a pronounced renormalization of the quasiparticle gap of the MoS$_2$ layer. Following optical excitation, the band gap is reduced by up to $sim!$400 meV on femtosecond timescales due to a persistence of strong electronic interactions despite the environmental screening by the $n$-doped graphene. This points to a large degree of tuneability of both the electronic structure and electron dynamics for 2D semiconductors embedded in a van der Waals-bonded heterostructure.
Three-dimensional (3D) topological Dirac semimetals (TDSs) represent a novel state of quantum matter that can be viewed as 3D graphene. In contrast to two-dimensional (2D) Dirac fermions in graphene or on the surface of 3D topological insulators, TDSs possess 3D Dirac fermions in the bulk. The TDS is also an important boundary state mediating numerous novel quantum states, such as topological insulators, Weyl semi-metals, Axion insulators and topological superconductors. By investigating the electronic structure of Na3Bi with angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy, we discovered 3D Dirac fermions with linear dispersions along all momentum directions for the first time. Furthermore, we demonstrated that the 3D Dirac fermions in Na3Bi were protected by the bulk crystal symmetry. Our results establish that Na3Bi is the first model system of 3D TDSs, which can also serve as an ideal platform for the systematic study of quantum phase transitions between rich novel topological quantum states.
Proximity of two different materials leads to an intricate coupling of quasiparticles so that an unprecedented electronic state is often realized at the interface. Here, we demonstrate a resonance-type many-body ground state in graphene, a non-magnetic two-dimensional Dirac semimetal, when grown on SmB6, a Kondo insulator, via thermal decomposition of fullerene molecules. This ground state is typically observed in three-dimensional magnetic materials with correlated electrons. Above the characteristic Kondo temperature of the substrate, the electron band structure of pristine graphene remains almost intact. As temperature decreases, however, the Dirac fermions of graphene become hybridized with the Sm 4f states. Remarkable enhancement of the hybridization and Kondo resonance is observed with further cooling and increasing charge carrier density of graphene, evidencing the Kondo screening of the Sm 4f local magnetic moment by the conduction electrons of graphene at the interface. These findings manifest the realization of the Kondo effect in graphene by the proximity of SmB6 that is tuned by temperature and charge carrier density of graphene.