Peculiar symmetry-protected electronic dispersions in two-dimensional materials

Abstract

Symmetry indicates that low energy spectra of materials could be richer than well-known Dirac, semi-Dirac, or quadratic, hosting some unusual quasiparticles. Performing the systematic study of exact forms of low energy effective Hamiltonians and dispersions in high-symmetry points with fourfold degeneracy of bands, we found new, previously unreported dispersion, which we named poppy flower (PF) after its shape. This massless fermion exists in non-magnetic two-dimensional (2D) crystals with spin–orbit coupling (SOC), which are invariant under one of the proposed ten noncentrosymmetric layer groups. We suggest real three-dimensional (3D) layered materials suitable for exfoliation, having layers that belong to these symmetry groups as candidates for realization of PF fermions. In 2D systems without spin–orbit interaction, fortune teller (FT)-like fermions were theoretically predicted, and afterward experimentally verified in the electronic structure of surface layer of silicon. Herein, we show that such fermions can also be hosted in 2D crystals with SOC, invariant under additional two noncentrosymmetric layer groups. This prediction is confirmed by density functional based calculation: layered BiIO4, which has been synthesized already as a 3D crystal, exfoliates to stable monolayer with symmetry pb21a, and FT fermion is observed in the band structure. Analytically calculated density of states (DOS) of the PF shows semimetallic characteristic, in contrast to metallic nature of FT having non-zero DOS at the bands contact energy. We indicate possibilities for symmetry breaking patterns which correspond to the robustness of the proposed dispersions as well as to the transition from Dirac centrosymmetric semimetal to PF.