DOE PAGES title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Discovery of a weak topological insulating state and van Hove singularity in triclinic RhBi2

Abstract

Abstract Time reversal symmetric (TRS) invariant topological insulators (TIs) fullfil a paradigmatic role in the field of topological materials, standing at the origin of its development. Apart from TRS protected strong TIs, it was realized early on that more confounding weak topological insulators (WTI) exist. WTIs depend on translational symmetry and exhibit topological surface states only in certain directions making it significantly more difficult to match the experimental success of strong TIs. We here report on the discovery of a WTI state in RhBi 2 that belongs to the optimal space group P $$$$\bar{1}$$$$ 1 ¯ , which is the only space group where symmetry indicated eigenvalues enumerate all possible invariants due to absence of additional constraining crystalline symmetries. Our ARPES, DFT calculations, and effective model reveal topological surface states with saddle points that are located in the vicinity of a Dirac point resulting in a van Hove singularity (VHS) along the (100) direction close to the Fermi energy ( E F ). Due to the combination of exotic features, this material offers great potential as a material platform for novel quantum effects.

Authors:
; ; ORCiD logo; ; ORCiD logo; ; ; ORCiD logo; ORCiD logo; ; ORCiD logo
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Ames Lab., Ames, IA (United States); Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC) (United States). Center for the Advancement of Topological Semimetals (CATS)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE; USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division
OSTI Identifier:
1772659
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1772555
Report Number(s):
IS-J-10,442
Journal ID: ISSN 2041-1723; 1855; PII: 22136
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC02-07CH11358; 842901
Resource Type:
Published Article
Journal Name:
Nature Communications
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Name: Nature Communications Journal Volume: 12 Journal Issue: 1; Journal ID: ISSN 2041-1723
Publisher:
Nature Publishing Group
Country of Publication:
United Kingdom
Language:
English
Subject:
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE; Electronic properties and materials; Topological insulators

Citation Formats

Lee, Kyungchan, Lange, Gunnar F., Wang, Lin-Lin, Kuthanazhi, Brinda, Trevisan, Thaís V., Jo, Na Hyun, Schrunk, Benjamin, Orth, Peter P., Slager, Robert-Jan, Canfield, Paul C., and Kaminski, Adam. Discovery of a weak topological insulating state and van Hove singularity in triclinic RhBi2. United Kingdom: N. p., 2021. Web. doi:10.1038/s41467-021-22136-w.
Lee, Kyungchan, Lange, Gunnar F., Wang, Lin-Lin, Kuthanazhi, Brinda, Trevisan, Thaís V., Jo, Na Hyun, Schrunk, Benjamin, Orth, Peter P., Slager, Robert-Jan, Canfield, Paul C., & Kaminski, Adam. Discovery of a weak topological insulating state and van Hove singularity in triclinic RhBi2. United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-22136-w
Lee, Kyungchan, Lange, Gunnar F., Wang, Lin-Lin, Kuthanazhi, Brinda, Trevisan, Thaís V., Jo, Na Hyun, Schrunk, Benjamin, Orth, Peter P., Slager, Robert-Jan, Canfield, Paul C., and Kaminski, Adam. Thu . "Discovery of a weak topological insulating state and van Hove singularity in triclinic RhBi2". United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-22136-w.
@article{osti_1772659,
title = {Discovery of a weak topological insulating state and van Hove singularity in triclinic RhBi2},
author = {Lee, Kyungchan and Lange, Gunnar F. and Wang, Lin-Lin and Kuthanazhi, Brinda and Trevisan, Thaís V. and Jo, Na Hyun and Schrunk, Benjamin and Orth, Peter P. and Slager, Robert-Jan and Canfield, Paul C. and Kaminski, Adam},
abstractNote = {Abstract Time reversal symmetric (TRS) invariant topological insulators (TIs) fullfil a paradigmatic role in the field of topological materials, standing at the origin of its development. Apart from TRS protected strong TIs, it was realized early on that more confounding weak topological insulators (WTI) exist. WTIs depend on translational symmetry and exhibit topological surface states only in certain directions making it significantly more difficult to match the experimental success of strong TIs. We here report on the discovery of a WTI state in RhBi 2 that belongs to the optimal space group P $$\bar{1}$$ 1 ¯ , which is the only space group where symmetry indicated eigenvalues enumerate all possible invariants due to absence of additional constraining crystalline symmetries. Our ARPES, DFT calculations, and effective model reveal topological surface states with saddle points that are located in the vicinity of a Dirac point resulting in a van Hove singularity (VHS) along the (100) direction close to the Fermi energy ( E F ). Due to the combination of exotic features, this material offers great potential as a material platform for novel quantum effects.},
doi = {10.1038/s41467-021-22136-w},
journal = {Nature Communications},
number = 1,
volume = 12,
place = {United Kingdom},
year = {Thu Mar 25 00:00:00 EDT 2021},
month = {Thu Mar 25 00:00:00 EDT 2021}
}

Works referenced in this record:

Generalized Gradient Approximation Made Simple
journal, October 1996

  • Perdew, John P.; Burke, Kieron; Ernzerhof, Matthias
  • Physical Review Letters, Vol. 77, Issue 18, p. 3865-3868
  • DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.77.3865

Topological insulators and superconductors
journal, October 2011


Use of frit-disc crucibles for routine and exploratory solution growth of single crystalline samples
journal, December 2015


Equivalent expression of Z 2 topological invariant for band insulators using the non-Abelian Berry connection
journal, August 2011


New materials physics
journal, November 2019


Projector augmented-wave method
journal, December 1994


Maximally localized Wannier functions: Theory and applications
journal, October 2012

  • Marzari, Nicola; Mostofi, Arash A.; Yates, Jonathan R.
  • Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol. 84, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.1103/RevModPhys.84.1419

Simple scheme for surface-band calculations. II. The Green's function
journal, May 1981


Topological phase diagram and saddle point singularity in a tunable topological crystalline insulator
journal, August 2015


Occurrence of van Hove singularities in YBa2Cu4O8 and YBa2Cu3O6.9
journal, October 1993


Van Hove singularity and ferromagnetic instability in phosphorene
journal, August 2015


Wilson-loop characterization of inversion-symmetric topological insulators
journal, April 2014


Maximally localized generalized Wannier functions for composite energy bands
journal, November 1997


Superconductivity in Alcaline-Earth-Substituted La 2 CuO 4 : A Theoretical Model
journal, June 1987


A weak topological insulator state in quasi-one-dimensional bismuth iodide
journal, February 2019


The translational side of topological band insulators
journal, May 2019


Magnetic phases near the Van Hove singularity in s - and d -band Hubbard models
journal, August 1997


Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and its application to topological materials
journal, August 2019


Symmetry-based indicators of band topology in the 230 space groups
journal, June 2017


Magnetic and Superconducting Instabilities of the Hubbard Model at the Van Hove Filling
journal, October 2001


Topological defects and gapless modes in insulators and superconductors
journal, September 2010


Stacked topological insulator built from bismuth-based graphene sheet analogues
journal, March 2013

  • Rasche, Bertold; Isaeva, Anna; Ruck, Michael
  • Nature Materials, Vol. 12, Issue 5
  • DOI: 10.1038/nmat3570

Subnanometre-wide electron channels protected by topology
journal, March 2015

  • Pauly, Christian; Rasche, Bertold; Koepernik, Klaus
  • Nature Physics, Vol. 11, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.1038/nphys3264

Self-Consistent Equations Including Exchange and Correlation Effects
journal, November 1965


Quick iterative scheme for the calculation of transfer matrices: application to Mo (100)
journal, May 1984

  • Sancho, M. P. Lopez; Sancho, J. M. Lopez; Rubio, J.
  • Journal of Physics F: Metal Physics, Vol. 14, Issue 5
  • DOI: 10.1088/0305-4608/14/5/016

Wilson loop approach to fragile topology of split elementary band representations and topological crystalline insulators with time-reversal symmetry
journal, November 2019


Efficiency of ab-initio total energy calculations for metals and semiconductors using a plane-wave basis set
journal, July 1996


Antiferromagnetism and superconductivity in a quasi two-dimensional electron gas. Scaling theory of a generic Hubbard model
journal, January 1987


Special points for Brillouin-zone integrations
journal, June 1976

  • Monkhorst, Hendrik J.; Pack, James D.
  • Physical Review B, Vol. 13, Issue 12, p. 5188-5192
  • DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.13.5188

Colloquium: Topological insulators
journal, November 2010


New Mechanism for Superconductivity
journal, September 1965


Impurity-bound states and Green's function zeros as local signatures of topology
journal, August 2015


Efficient iterative schemes for ab initio total-energy calculations using a plane-wave basis set
journal, October 1996


Ferromagnetism in the Two Dimensional t t Hubbard Model at the Van Hove Density
journal, February 1997


Observation of a large-gap topological-insulator class with a single Dirac cone on the surface
journal, May 2009

  • Xia, Y.; Qian, D.; Hsieh, D.
  • Nature Physics, Vol. 5, Issue 6, p. 398-402
  • DOI: 10.1038/nphys1274

Quantitative mappings between symmetry and topology in solids
journal, August 2018


Anomalous isotope effect and Van Hove singularity in superconducting Cu oxides
journal, November 1990


Inhomogeneous Electron Gas
journal, November 1964


Topological quantum chemistry
journal, July 2017

  • Bradlyn, Barry; Elcoro, L.; Cano, Jennifer
  • Nature, Vol. 547, Issue 7663
  • DOI: 10.1038/nature23268

Topological Insulators in Three Dimensions
journal, March 2007


Enhanced Superconductivity in Quasi Two-Dimensional Systems
journal, June 1986


Interplay between electronic topology and crystal symmetry: Dislocation-line modes in topological band insulators
journal, December 2014


Simple scheme for surface-band calculations. I
journal, May 1981


WannierTools: An open-source software package for novel topological materials
journal, March 2018


Kinematics of Electrons near a Van Hove Singularity
journal, May 2000


Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy(ARPES) , DFT calculations and theoretical description of a weak topological insulator RhBi2
dataset, January 2021


Tunable vacuum ultraviolet laser based spectrometer for angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy
journal, March 2014

  • Jiang, Rui; Mou, Daixiang; Wu, Yun
  • Review of Scientific Instruments, Vol. 85, Issue 3, Article No. 033902
  • DOI: 10.1063/1.4867517

Extended van Hove Singularity and Superconducting Instability in Doped Graphene
journal, April 2010


The space group classification of topological band-insulators
journal, December 2012

  • Slager, Robert-Jan; Mesaros, Andrej; Juričić, Vladimir
  • Nature Physics, Vol. 9, Issue 2
  • DOI: 10.1038/nphys2513

Observation of a van Hove singularity in Bi 2 Sr 2 CaCu 2 O 8 + x with angle-resolved photoemission
journal, February 1995


Correlation effects and quantum oscillations in topological nodal-loop semimetals
journal, February 2017


One-dimensional topologically protected modes in topological insulators with lattice dislocations
journal, March 2009

  • Ran, Ying; Zhang, Yi; Vishwanath, Ashvin
  • Nature Physics, Vol. 5, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.1038/nphys1220

Observation of Van Hove singularities in twisted graphene layers
journal, November 2009

  • Li, Guohong; Luican, A.; Lopes dos Santos, J. M. B.
  • Nature Physics, Vol. 6, Issue 2
  • DOI: 10.1038/nphys1463

Maximally localized Wannier functions for entangled energy bands
journal, December 2001


Highly convergent schemes for the calculation of bulk and surface Green functions
journal, April 1985

  • Sancho, M. P. Lopez; Sancho, J. M. Lopez; Sancho, J. M. L.
  • Journal of Physics F: Metal Physics, Vol. 15, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.1088/0305-4608/15/4/009