Signatures of Sixfold Degenerate Exotic Fermions in a Superconducting Metal PdSb2.

Multifold degenerate points in the electronic structure of metals lead to exotic behaviors. These range from twofold and fourfold degenerate Weyl and Dirac points, respectively, to sixfold and eightfold degenerate points that are predicted to give rise, under modest magnetic fields or strain, to topological semimetallic behaviors. The present study shows that the nonsymmorphic compound PdSb2 hosts six-component fermions or sextuplets. Using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, crossing points formed by three twofold degenerate parabolic bands are directly observed at the corner of the Brillouin zone. The group theory analysis proves that under weak spin-orbit interaction, a band inversion occurs.

Electronic properties of topological insulator candidate CaAgAs.

The topological phases of matter provide the opportunity to observe many exotic properties, such as the existence of 2D topological surface states in the form of Dirac cones in topological insulators and chiral transport through the open Fermi arc in Weyl semimetals. However, these properties affect the transport characteristics and, therefore, may be useful for applications only if the topological phenomena occur near the Fermi level. CaAgAs is a promising candidate for which the ab initio calculations predict line-nodes at the Fermi energy. However, the compound transforms into a topological insulator on considering spin-orbit interaction. In this study, we investigated the electronic structure of CaAgAs with angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), ab initio calculations, and transport measurements. The results from ARPES show that the bulk valence band crosses the Fermi energy at the Γ-point. The measured band dispersion matches the ab initio calculations closely when shifting the Fermi energy in the calculations by -0.5 eV. The ARPES results are in good agreement with transport measurements, which show abundant p-type carriers.

Observation of a remarkable reduction of correlation effects in BaCr2As2 by ARPES.

The superconducting phase in iron-based high-[Formula: see text] superconductors (FeSC), as in other unconventional superconductors such as the cuprates, neighbors a magnetically ordered one in the phase diagram. This proximity hints at the importance of electron correlation effects in these materials, and Hund's exchange interaction has been suggested to be the dominant correlation effect in FeSCs because of their multiband nature. By this reasoning, correlation should be strongest for materials closest to a half-filled [Formula: see text] electron shell (Mn compounds, hole-doped FeSCs) and decrease for systems with both higher (electron-doped FeSCs) and lower (Cr-pnictides) [Formula: see text] counts. Here we address the strength of correlation effects in nonsuperconducting antiferromagnetic BaCr2As2 by means of angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) and first-principles calculations. This combination provides us with two handles on the strength of correlation: First, a comparison of the experimental and calculated effective masses yields the correlation-induced mass renormalization. In addition, the lifetime broadening of the experimentally observed dispersions provides another measure of the correlation strength. Both approaches reveal a reduction of electron correlation in BaCr2As2 with respect to systems with a [Formula: see text] count closer to five. Our results thereby support the theoretical predictions that Hund's exchange interaction is important in these materials.

Multiple Dirac cones at the surface of the topological metal LaBi.

The rare-earth monopnictide LaBi exhibits exotic magneto-transport properties, including an extremely large and anisotropic magnetoresistance. Experimental evidence for topological surface states is still missing although band inversions have been postulated to induce a topological phase in LaBi. In this work, we have revealed the existence of surface states of LaBi through the observation of three Dirac cones: two coexist at the corners and one appears at the centre of the Brillouin zone, by employing angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy in conjunction with ab initio calculations. The odd number of surface Dirac cones is a direct consequence of the odd number of band inversions in the bulk band structure, thereby proving that LaBi is a topological, compensated semimetal, which is equivalent to a time-reversal invariant topological insulator. Our findings provide insight into the topological surface states of LaBi's semi-metallicity and related magneto-transport properties.