Kramers nodal line metals

Ying Ming Xie, Xue Jian Gao, Xiao Yan Xu, Cheng Ping Zhang, Jin Xin Hu, Jason Z. Gao, K. T. Law*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal Articlepeer-review

35 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Recently, it was pointed out that all chiral crystals with spin-orbit coupling (SOC) can be Kramers Weyl semimetals (KWSs) which possess Weyl points pinned at time-reversal invariant momenta. In this work, we show that all achiral non-centrosymmetric materials with SOC can be a new class of topological materials, which we term Kramers nodal line metals (KNLMs). In KNLMs, there are doubly degenerate lines, which we call Kramers nodal lines (KNLs), connecting time-reversal invariant momenta. The KNLs create two types of Fermi surfaces, namely, the spindle torus type and the octdong type. Interestingly, all the electrons on octdong Fermi surfaces are described by two-dimensional massless Dirac Hamiltonians. These materials support quantized optical conductance in thin films. We further show that KNLMs can be regarded as parent states of KWSs. Therefore, we conclude that all non-centrosymmetric metals with SOC are topological, as they can be either KWSs or KNLMs.

Original languageEnglish
Article number3064
JournalNature Communications
Volume12
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Dec 2021

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