Prof Yulin Chen

Abstract:

© The Authors, some rights reserved. In metals, orbital motions of conduction electrons on the Fermi surface are quantized in magnetic fields, which is manifested by quantum oscillations in electrical resistivity. This Landau quantization is generally absent in insulators. Here we report a notable exception in an insulator — ytterbium dodecaboride (YbBi2>. The resistivity of YbBi2, which is of a much larger magnitude than the resistivity in metals, exhibits distinct quantum oscillations. These unconventional oscillations arise from the insulating bulk, even though the temperature dependence of the oscillation amplitude follows the conventional Fermi liquid theory of metals with a large effective mass. Quantum oscillations in the magnetic torque are also observed, albeit with a lighter effective mass.

Abstract:

Group VIII transition-metal dichalcogenides have recently been proposed to host type-II Dirac fermions. They are Lorentz-violating quasiparticles marked by a strongly tilted conic dispersion along a certain momentum direction and therefore have no analogs in the standard model. Using high-resolution angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, we systematically studied the electronic structure of PtSe2 in the full three-dimensional Brillouin zone. As predicted, a pair of type-II Dirac crossings is experimentally confirmed along the kz axis. Interestingly, we observed conic surface states around time-reversal-invariant momenta Γ and M points. The signatures of nontrivial topology are confirmed by the first-principles calculation, which shows an intricate parity inversion of bulk states. Our discoveries not only contribute to a better understanding of topological band structure in PtSe2 but also help further explore the exotic properties, as well as potential application, of group VIII transition-metal dichalcogenides.