Quantum Transport of the 2D Surface State in a Nonsymmorphic Semimetal

Nano Lett. 2021 Jun 9;21(11):4887-4893. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c04946. Epub 2021 Apr 9.

Abstract

In a topological semimetal with Dirac or Weyl points, the bulk-boundary correspondence principle predicts a gapless edge mode if the essential symmetry is still preserved at the surface. The detection of such topological surface state has been considered as the fingerprint prove for crystals with nontrivial topological bulk band. On the contrary, it has been proposed that even with symmetry broken at the surface, a new surface band can emerge in nonsymmorphic topological semimetals. The symmetry reduction at the surface lifts the bulk band degeneracies and produces an unusual "floating" surface band with trivial topology. Here, we first report quantum transport probing to ZrSiSe thin flakes and directly reveal transport signatures of this new surface state. Remarkably, though topologically trivial, such a surface band exhibits substantial two-dimensional Shubnikov-de Haas quantum oscillations with high mobility, which signifies a new protection mechanism and may open applications for quantum computing and spintronic devices.

Keywords: 2D topological nodal line semimetal; SdH quantum oscillation; nonsymmorphic symmetry; surface transport.