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Title: van der Waals Stacking-Induced Topological Phase Transition in Layered Ternary Transition Metal Chalcogenides

Abstract

Innovative materials with nontrivial electronic and photonic band topology are crucial for realizing novel devices with low power consumption and heat dissipation and quantum computing free of decoherence. In this work, we theoretically predict a novel class of ternary transition metal chalcogenides that exhibit dual topological characteristics, quantum spin Hall insulators (QSHIs) in their two-dimensional (2D) monolayers and topological Weyl semimetals in their 3D noncentrosymmetric crystals upon van der Waals (vdW) stacking. Remarkably, we find that one can create and annihilate Weyl fermions and realize the transition between Type-I and Type-II Weyl fermions by tuning vdW interlayer spacing, providing the missing physical picture of the evolution from 2D QSHIs to 3D Weyl semimetals. Our findings also show that these materials possess excellent thermodynamic stability and weak interlayer binding; some of them were synthesized two decades ago, implying their great potentials for experimental synthesis, characterization, and vdW heterostacking. Moreover, their ternary nature will offer more tunability for electronic structure by controlling different stoichiometry and valence charges. These results provide an ideal materials platform for realizing QSH effect and exploring fundamental topological phase transition and will open up a variety of new opportunities for two-dimensional materials and topological materials research.

Authors:
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [1]; ORCiD logo [2]
  1. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
  2. Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX (United States)
  3. Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division; National Science Foundation (NSF)
OSTI Identifier:
1534783
Grant/Contract Number:  
SC0010526
Resource Type:
Journal Article: Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Nano Letters
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 17; Journal Issue: 1; Journal ID: ISSN 1530-6984
Publisher:
American Chemical Society
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY; Quantum spin Hall insulators; Weyl semimetals; topological phase transition; ternary transition metal chalcogenides; 2D materials

Citation Formats

Liu, Junwei, Wang, Hua, Fang, Chen, Fu, Liang, and Qian, Xiaofeng. van der Waals Stacking-Induced Topological Phase Transition in Layered Ternary Transition Metal Chalcogenides. United States: N. p., 2016. Web. doi:10.1021/acs.nanolett.6b04487.
Liu, Junwei, Wang, Hua, Fang, Chen, Fu, Liang, & Qian, Xiaofeng. van der Waals Stacking-Induced Topological Phase Transition in Layered Ternary Transition Metal Chalcogenides. United States. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.6b04487
Liu, Junwei, Wang, Hua, Fang, Chen, Fu, Liang, and Qian, Xiaofeng. 2016. "van der Waals Stacking-Induced Topological Phase Transition in Layered Ternary Transition Metal Chalcogenides". United States. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.6b04487. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1534783.
@article{osti_1534783,
title = {van der Waals Stacking-Induced Topological Phase Transition in Layered Ternary Transition Metal Chalcogenides},
author = {Liu, Junwei and Wang, Hua and Fang, Chen and Fu, Liang and Qian, Xiaofeng},
abstractNote = {Innovative materials with nontrivial electronic and photonic band topology are crucial for realizing novel devices with low power consumption and heat dissipation and quantum computing free of decoherence. In this work, we theoretically predict a novel class of ternary transition metal chalcogenides that exhibit dual topological characteristics, quantum spin Hall insulators (QSHIs) in their two-dimensional (2D) monolayers and topological Weyl semimetals in their 3D noncentrosymmetric crystals upon van der Waals (vdW) stacking. Remarkably, we find that one can create and annihilate Weyl fermions and realize the transition between Type-I and Type-II Weyl fermions by tuning vdW interlayer spacing, providing the missing physical picture of the evolution from 2D QSHIs to 3D Weyl semimetals. Our findings also show that these materials possess excellent thermodynamic stability and weak interlayer binding; some of them were synthesized two decades ago, implying their great potentials for experimental synthesis, characterization, and vdW heterostacking. Moreover, their ternary nature will offer more tunability for electronic structure by controlling different stoichiometry and valence charges. These results provide an ideal materials platform for realizing QSH effect and exploring fundamental topological phase transition and will open up a variety of new opportunities for two-dimensional materials and topological materials research.},
doi = {10.1021/acs.nanolett.6b04487},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1534783}, journal = {Nano Letters},
issn = {1530-6984},
number = 1,
volume = 17,
place = {United States},
year = {Wed Dec 07 00:00:00 EST 2016},
month = {Wed Dec 07 00:00:00 EST 2016}
}

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Cited by: 54 works
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Works referencing / citing this record:

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Nonsaturating Magnetoresistance and Nontrivial Band Topology of Type‐II Weyl Semimetal NbIrTe 4
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A First‐Principles Study of Electronic Properties of Twisted MoTe 2
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Sulfide cluster vacancies inducing an electrochemical reversibility improvement of titanium disulfide electrode material
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High-throughput screening and classification of layered di-metal chalcogenides
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Experimental progress on layered topological semimetals
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A new phase of the two-dimensional ReS 2 sheet with tunable magnetism
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Direct transition of a HfGeTe4 ternary transition-metal chalcogenide monolayer with a zigzag van der Waals gap
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