Spectroscopic Evidence on Realization of a Genuine Topological Nodal Line Semimetal in LaSbTe

Yang Wang; Yuting Qian; Meng Yang; Hongxiang Chen; Cong Li; Zhiyun Tan; Yongqing Cai; Wenjuan Zhao; Shunye Gao; Ya Feng; Shiv Kumar; Eike F. Schwier; Lin Zhao; Hongming Weng; Youguo Shi; Gang Wang; Youting Song; Yaobo Huang; Kenya Shimada; Zuyan Xu; X. J. Zhou; Guodong Liu

arXiv · 2102.13324

Spectroscopic Evidence on Realization of a Genuine Topological Nodal Line Semimetal in LaSbTe

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Abstract

The nodal line semimetals have attracted much attention due to their unique topological electronic structure and exotic physical properties. A genuine nodal line semimetal is qualified by the presence of Dirac nodes along a line in the momentum space that are protected against the spin-orbit coupling. In addition, it requires that the Dirac points lie close to the Fermi level allowing to dictate the macroscopic physical properties. Although the material realization of nodal line semimetals have been theoretically predicted in numerous compounds, only a few of them have been experimentally verified and the realization of a genuine nodal line semimetal is particularly rare. Here we report the realization of a genuine nodal line semimetal in LaSbTe. We investigated the electronic structure of LaSbTe by band structure calculations and angle-resolved photoemission (ARPES) measurements. Taking spin-orbit coupling into account, our band structure calculations predict that a nodal line is formed in the boundary surface of the Brillouin zone which is robust and lies close to the Fermi level. The Dirac nodes along the X-R line in momentum space are directly observed in our ARPES measurements and the energies of these Dirac nodes are all close to the Fermi level. These results constitute clear evidence that LaSbTe is a genuine nodal line semimetal,providing a new platform to explore for novel phenomena and possible applications associated with the nodal line semimetals.

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Yang Wang, Yuting Qian, Meng Yang, Hongxiang Chen, Cong Li, Zhiyun Tan, Yongqing Cai, Wenjuan Zhao, Shunye Gao, Ya Feng, Shiv Kumar, Eike F. Schwier, Lin Zhao, Hongming Weng, Youguo Shi, Gang Wang, Youting Song, Yaobo Huang, Kenya Shimada, Zuyan Xu, X. J. Zhou, Guodong Liu. 2021-02-26. Spectroscopic Evidence on Realization of a Genuine Topological Nodal Line Semimetal in LaSbTe. https://arxiv.org/abs/2102.13324

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