Nonsymmorphic Symmetry-Protected Band Crossings in a Square-Net Metal PtPb$_4$

Abstract

Topological semimetals with symmetry-protected band crossings have emerged as a rich landscape to explore intriguing electronic phenomena. Nonsymmorphic symmetries in particular have been shown to play an important role in protecting the crossings along a line (rather than a point) in momentum space. Here we report experimental and theoretical evidence for Dirac nodal line crossings along the Brillouin zone boundaries in PtPb$_4$, arising from the nonsymmorphic symmetry of its crystal structure. Interestingly, while the nodal lines would remain gapless in the absence of spin-orbit coupling (SOC), the SOC in this case plays a detrimental role to topology by lifting the band degeneracy everywhere except at a set of isolated points. Nevertheless, the nodal line is observed to have a bandwidth much smaller than that found in density functional theory (DFT). Our findings reveal PtPb$_4$ to be a material system with narrow crossings approximately protected by non-symmorhpic crystalline symmetries.