Anisotropic optical conductivities of model topological nodal-line semimetals

Sita Kandel; Godfrey Gumbs; Oleg L Berman

doi:10.1088/1361-648X/acfde8

Anisotropic optical conductivities of model topological nodal-line semimetals

J Phys Condens Matter. 2023 Oct 10;36(2). doi: 10.1088/1361-648X/acfde8.

Authors

Sita Kandel^{1

2}, Godfrey Gumbs^{1

2

3}, Oleg L Berman^{2

4}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics, Hunter College, City University of New York, 695 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10065, United States of America.
² The Graduate School and University Center, The City University of New York, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.
³ Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC), P de Manuel Lardizabal, 4, 20018 San Sebastian, Basque Country, Spain.
⁴ Physics Department, New York City College of Technology, The City University of New York, Brooklyn, NY 11201, United States of America.

PMID: 37757842
DOI: 10.1088/1361-648X/acfde8

Abstract

With the use of simple models, we investigated the optical conductivity of a nodal-line semimetal (NLSM) whose crossing of the conduction and valence bands near the origin (Opoint) in the (kx,ky) plane of a small cubic region can be adjusted by a parameterα. The Hamiltonian of the NLSM is based on thek⋅pmodel for the low-lying energy bands. Whenα = 0, these bands touch each other along a continuous closed loop but the opening of a band gap corresponding to finite values ofαand the varying of the carrier concentration can be adjusted. This provides a tunable semiconductor gap, around theOpoint and the valence and conduction bands can meet at a pair of points within the small cubic region inkspace. The optical conductivity of such a NLSM is calculated using the Kubo formula with emphasis on the optical spectral weight redistribution, deduced from appropriate Green's functions, brought about by changes in gap and chemical potential due to modifyingα. We derived closed-form semi-analytic expressions for the longitudinal components of the optical conductivity for these model systems of NLSM and compare results for chosenαand chemical potential. We also present results for the heat capacity when the system is in thermal equilibrium for various chosenαand chemical potential.

Keywords: anisotropic; model hamiltonian; nodal-line; optical conductivities; topological.