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Title: Strain-induced nonsymmorphic symmetry breaking and removal of Dirac semimetallic nodal line in an orthoperovskite iridate

Journal Article · · Physical Review B
 [1];  [2];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [4];  [6];  [2];  [5];  [3];  [7];  [5]
  1. Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States); Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  2. Charles Univ., Prague (Czech Republic)
  3. Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL (United States)
  4. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)
  5. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  6. Inst. de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC), Bellaterra (Spain)
  7. Inst. of Physics ASCR, Prague (Czech Republic)

By using a combination of heteroepitaxial growth, structure refinement based on synchrotron x-ray diffraction, and first-principles calculations, we show that the symmetry-protected Dirac line nodes in the topological semimetallic perovskite SrIrO3 can be lifted simply by applying epitaxial constraints. In particular, the Dirac gap opens without breaking the Pbnm mirror symmetry. In virtue of a symmetry-breaking analysis, we demonstrate that the original symmetry protection is related to the n -glide operation, which can be selectively broken by different heteroepitaxial structures. Here, this symmetry protection renders the nodal line a nonsymmorphic Dirac semimetallic state. The results highlight the vital role of crystal symmetry in spin-orbit-coupled correlated oxides and provide a foundation for experimental realization of topological insulators in iridate-based heterostructures.

Research Organization:
Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division; US Army Research Office (ARO); Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation of Spain (MINECO); Austrian Science Fund (FWF)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231; AC02-06CH11357; W911NF-15-1-0017; MAT2012-33207; J3523-N27
OSTI ID:
1238283
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1237794
Journal Information:
Physical Review B, Vol. 93, Issue 8; ISSN 2469-9950
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
ENGLISH
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 69 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (20)

Topological nodal line semimetals predicted from first-principles calculations journal June 2017
Observation of Dirac-like energy band and ring-torus Fermi surface associated with the nodal line in topological insulator CaAgAs journal January 2018
Theory of Large Intrinsic Spin Hall Effect in Iridate Semimetals journal May 2018
Magnetism in iridate heterostructures leveraged by structural distortions journal March 2019
Growth facets of SrIrO 3 thin films and single crystals journal January 2019
Epitaxial stabilization of Sr 3 Ir 2 O 7 thin films journal May 2019
Strain-engineering of charge transport in the correlated Dirac semimetal of perovskite CaIrO 3 thin films journal August 2019
Suppression of twinning and enhanced electronic anisotropy of SrIrO 3 films journal July 2019
Atomic-scale control of magnetic anisotropy via novel spin–orbit coupling effect in La 2/3 Sr 1/3 MnO 3 /SrIrO 3 superlattices journal May 2016
Review of Spin–Orbit Coupled Semimetal SrIrO 3 in Thin Film Form journal September 2017
Symmetry demanded topological nodal-line materials journal January 2018
The challenge of spin–orbit-tuned ground states in iridates: a key issues review journal February 2018
Correlated Dirac semimetallic state with unusual positive magnetoresistance in strain-free perovskite SrIrO 3 journal March 2017
Pseudo-Landau levels of Bogoliubov quasiparticles in strained nodal superconductors journal December 2017
Epitaxial growth and antiferromagnetism of Sn-substituted perovskite iridate SrI r 0.8 S n 0.2 O 3 journal December 2019
Symmetry Demanded Topological Nodal-line Materials text January 2017
Pseudo-Landau levels of Bogoliubov quasiparticles in strained nodal superconductors text January 2017
Theory of Large Intrinsic Spin Hall Effect in Iridate Semimetals text January 2017
Growth facets of SrIrO3 Thin Films and Single Crystals text January 2019
Suppression of twinning and enhanced electronic anisotropy of SrIrO3 films text January 2019