Surface states in Dirac semimetals and topological crystalline insulators

We reconsider the problem of a surface-state spectrum in type-I Dirac semimetals. We find that the surface states, despite being gapped, always form branches terminating at Dirac points. Furthermore, we consider evolution of the surface states in the case when rotational symmetry is broken, and as a...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review. B 2018-07, Vol.98 (4), p.045140, Article 045140
Main Author: Bednik, Grigory
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Crystal structure
Crystallinity
Insulators
Metalloids
Phase transitions
Symmetry
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:We reconsider the problem of a surface-state spectrum in type-I Dirac semimetals. We find that the surface states, despite being gapped, always form branches terminating at Dirac points. Furthermore, we consider evolution of the surface states in the case when rotational symmetry is broken, and as a result, Dirac points are gapped. We find that, in this case, a special role is played by mirror symmetry relative to the plane connecting the Dirac points. When it is present, the resulting gapped state is a topological crystalline insulator in which the surface spectrum can contain either one or three Dirac points, two of which are protected solely by the mirror symmetry. The Dirac semimetal can be viewed as a topological phase transition between two phases with different mirror Chern numbers.
ISSN:2469-9950
2469-9969
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevB.98.045140