Dirac cone protected by non-symmorphic symmetry and three-dimensional Dirac line node in ZrSiS.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 27241624.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms11696 and PMC identifier 4895020.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Materials harbouring exotic quasiparticles, such as massless Dirac and Weyl fermions, have garnered much attention from physics and material science communities due to their exceptional physical properties such as ultra-high mobility and extremely large magnetoresistances. Here, we show that the highly stable, non-toxic and earth-abundant material, ZrSiS, has an electronic band structure that hosts several Dirac cones that form a Fermi surface with a diamond-shaped line of Dirac nodes. We also show that the square Si lattice in ZrSiS is an excellent template for realizing new types of two-dimensional Dirac cones recently predicted by Young and Kane. Finally, we find that the energy range of the linearly dispersed bands is as high as 2 eV above and below the Fermi level; much larger than of other known Dirac materials. This makes ZrSiS a very promising candidate to study Dirac electrons, as well as the properties of lines of Dirac nodes.