Multiple Types of Topological Fermions in Transition Metal Silicides

作者：Tang, Peizhe^*; Zhou, Quan; Zhang, Shou-Cheng

来源：Physical Review Letters, 2017, 119(20): 206402.

DOI：10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.206402

• MAGNETIC-PROPERTIES
• DIRAC SEMIMETAL
• DISCOVERY
• MAJORANA
• STATES
• ARCS

Exotic massless fermionic excitations with nonzero Berry flux, other than the Dirac and Weyl fermions, could exist in condensed matter systems under the protection of crystalline symmetries, such as spin-1 excitations with threefold degeneracy and spin-3= 2 Rarita-Schwinger-Weyl fermions. Herein, by using the ab initio density functional theory, we show that these unconventional quasiparticles coexist with type-I and type-IIWeyl fermions in a family of transition metal silicides, including CoSi, RhSi, RhGe, and CoGe, when spin-orbit coupling is considered. Their nontrivial topology results in a series of extensive Fermi arcs connecting projections of these bulk excitations on the side surface, which is confirmed by (001) surface electronic spectra of CoSi. In addition, these stable arc states exist within a wide energy window around the Fermi level, which makes them readily accessible in angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy measurements.

• 出版日期2017-11-17