No Arabic abstract
Effect of spin-orbit coupling (SOC) on Dirac electrons in the organic conductor $alpha$-(BETS)$_2$I$_3$ [BETS = bis(ethylenedithio)tetraselenafulvalene] has been examined by calculating electric conductivity and spin magnetic susceptibility. A tight-binding (TB) model with transfer energies consisting of real and imaginary parts is evaluated using first-principles density-functional theory calculation. The conductivity without SOC depends on both anisotropies of the velocity of the Dirac cone and the tiling of the cone. Such conductivity is suppressed by the SOC, which gives rise to the imaginary part of the transfer energy. It is shown at low temperatures that the conductivity decreases due to the SOC and the Dirac cone with linear dispersion. A nearly constant conductivity at high temperatures is obtained by an electron-phonon (e--p) scattering. Further, the property of the Dirac cone is examined for spin susceptibility, which is mainly determined by the density of states (DOS). The result is compared with the case of the organic conductor $alpha$-(BEDT-TTF)$_2$I$_3$ [BEDT-TTF=bis(ethylenedithio)tetrathiafulvalene], which provides the Dirac cone without SOC. The relevance to experiments is discussed.
We investigated the precise crystal structures and electronic states in a quasi-two-dimensional molecular conductor ${alpha}$-(BETS)$_2$I$_3$ at ambient pressure. The electronic resistivity of this molecular solid shows metal-to-insulator (MI) crossover at $T_{MI}$=50 K. Our x-ray diffraction and $^{13}$C nuclear magnetic resonance experiments revealed that ${alpha}$-(BETS)$_2$I$_3$ maintains the inversion symmetry below $T_{MI}$. First-principles calculations found a pair of anisotropic Dirac cones at a general k-point, with the degenerate contact points at the Fermi level. The origin of the insulating state in this system is a small energy gap of ~2 meV opened by the spin-orbit interaction. The Z$_2$ topological invariants indicate that this system is a weak topological insulator. Our results suggest that ${alpha}$-(BETS)$_2$I$_3$ is a promising material for studying the bulk Dirac electron system in two dimensions.
We employed first-principles density-functional theory (DFT) calculations to characterize Dirac electrons in quasi-two-dimensional molecular conductor $alpha$-(BETS)$_2$I$_3$ [= $alpha$-(BEDT-TSeF)$_2$I$_3$] at a low temperature of 30K. We provide a tight-binding model with intermolecular transfer energies evaluated from maximally localized Wannier functions, where the number of relevant transfer integrals is relatively large due to the delocalized character of Se $p$ orbitals. The spin-orbit coupling gives rise to an exotic insulating state with an indirect band gap of about 2 meV. We analyzed the energy spectrum with a Dirac cone close to the Fermi level to develop an effective Hamiltonian with site-potentials, which reproduces the spectrum obtained by the DFT band structure.
The conducting state of the quasi-two-dimensional organic conductor, $alpha$-(BEDT-TTF)$_2$I$_3$, at ambient pressure is investigated with $^{13}$C NMR measurements, which separate the local electronic states at three nonequivalent molecular sites (A, B, and C). The spin susceptibility and electron correlation effect are revealed in a locally resolved manner. While there is no remarkable site-dependence around room temperature, the local spin susceptibility gradually disproportionates among the nonequivalent sites with decreasing temperature. The disproportionation-ratio yields 5:4:6 for A:B:C molecules at 140 K. Distinct site- and temperature-dependences are also observed in the Korringa ratio, $mathcal{K}_i propto (1/T_{1}T)_iK^{-2}_i$ ($i$ = A, B, and C), which is a measure of the strength and the type of electron correlations. The values of $mathcal{K}_i$ point to sizable antiferromagnetic spin correlation. We argue the present results in terms of the theoretical prediction of the peculiar site-specific reciprocal-space ($bm{k}$-space) anisotropy on the tilted Dirac cone, and discuss the $bm{k}$-dependent profiles of the spin susceptibility and electron correlation on the cone.
We study longitudinal electric and thermoelectric transport coefficients of Dirac fermions on a simple lattice model where tuning of a single parameter enables us to change the type of Dirac cones from type-I to type-II. We pay particular attention to the behavior of the critical situation, i.e., the type-III Dirac cone. We find that the transport coefficients of the type-III Dirac fermions behave neither the limiting case of the type-I nor type-II. On one hand, the qualitative behaviors of the type-III case are similar to those of the type-I. On the other hand, the transport coefficients do not change monotonically upon increasing the tilting, namely, the largest thermoelectric response is obtained not for the type-III case but for the optically tilted type-I case. For the optimal case, the sizable transport coefficients are obtained, e.g., the dimensionless figure of merit being 0.18.
A mechanism is proposed based on the Kubo formula to generate a spin-polarized magneto-optical current of Dirac electrons in solids which have strong spin-orbit interactions such as bismuth. The ac current response functions are calculated in the isotropic Wolff model under an external magnetic field, and the selection rules for Dirac electrons are obtained. By using the circularly polarized light and tuning its frequency, one can excite electrons concentrated in the spin-polarized lowest Landau level when the chemical potential locates in the band gap, so that spin-polarization in the magneto-optical current can be achieved.