Dirac State Switching in Transition Metal Diarsenides

POSTER

Abstract

Topological semimetals exhibiting Dirac and Weyl fermions, which support low-energy quasi-particles in condensed matter physics, have been attracting intense research interest because of the exotic properties they possess like high magnetoresistance and high carrier mobilities. The transition metal diarsenides such as MoAs2 and WAs2 have been reported to feature very large magnetoresistance suggesting the possibility of topological quantum state in these materials. Here, we present the systematic electronic structure measurements of TAs2 (T = Mo, W) by using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) complemented by first-principles calculations. We observe a single Dirac surface state in MoAs2, which switches to trivial state for different cleaving surface. Interestingly, no Dirac surface state is observed in WAs2, despite its high magnetoresistance, highlighting the role of spin-orbit coupling in the electronic structure. Our study thus provides a new perspective on how cleavage plane and spin-orbit coupling drive changes in the electronic structures in low-symmetry systems.

*This project is supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under award number FA9550-17-1-0415 and the National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award DMR-1847962.

Presenters

  • Sabin Regmi

    • Univ of Central Florida
    • Physics, University of Central Florida
    • University of Central Florida

Authors

  • Sabin Regmi

    • Univ of Central Florida
    • Physics, University of Central Florida
    • University of Central Florida
  • Gyanendra Dhakal

    • Univ of Central Florida
    • Physics, University of Central Florida
    • University of Central Florida
  • Md Mofazzel Hosen

    • Univ of Central Florida
    • University of Central Florida
  • Wei-Chi Chiu

    • Northeastern University
  • Bahadur Singh

    • Northeastern University
    • Physics, Northeastern University
    • SZU-NUS Collaborative Center, ShenZhen University
    • Department of Physics, Northeastern University
  • Klauss Dimitri

    • Univ of Central Florida
    • Physics, University of Central Florida
    • University of Central Florida
  • Baokai Wang

    • Northeastern University
    • Physics, Northeastern University
  • Firoza Kabir

    • Univ of Central Florida
    • Physics, University of Central Florida
    • University of Central Florida
  • Christopher Sims

    • Univ of Central Florida
    • Physics, University of Central Florida
    • University of Central Florida
  • William Neff

    • Univ of Central Florida
    • University of Central Florida
  • Dariusz Kaczorowski

    • Institute of Low Temperature and Structure Research, Polish Academy of Sciences
    • Polish Academy of Sciences
  • Arun Bansil

    • Northeastern University
    • Physics, Northeastern University
  • Madhab Neupane

    • Univ of Central Florida
    • University of Central Florida
    • Physics, University of Central Florida