Electrically tunable multiple Dirac cones in thin films of (LaO)2(SbSe2)2 family of materials

TL;DR

This paper predicts a new family of thin film materials with eight electrically tunable Dirac cones, enabling control over their properties for potential electronic and quantum anomalous Hall applications.

Contribution

It introduces a novel Dirac system in (LaO)2(SbSe2)2 thin films with electrically tunable Dirac cones, Fermi velocities, and anisotropy based on first-principles calculations and an effective model.

Findings

Eight Dirac cones can be realized and controlled by gate voltage.

Fermi velocities and anisotropy of Dirac cones are tunable.

High Chern number quantum anomalous Hall effect can be achieved.

Abstract

Two-dimensional Dirac physics has aroused great interests in condensed matter physics ever since the discovery of graphene and topological insulators due to its importance in both fundamental physics and device applications. The ability to control the properties of Dirac cones, such as bandgap and Fermi velocity, is essential for the occurrence of various new phenomena and the development of next-generation electronic devices. Based on first-principles calculations and an analytical effective model, we propose a new Dirac system with eight Dirac cones in thin films of the (LaO)2(SbSe2)2 family of materials with an external gate voltage. The advantage of this system lies in its tunability: the existence of gapless Dirac cones, their positions, Fermi velocities and anisotropy all can be controlled by an experimentally feasible gate voltage. We identify the layer dependent spin texture induced by spin-orbit coupling as the underlying physical reason for the tunability of Dirac cones in this system. As a consequence, we show that the electrically tunable quantum anomalous Hall effect with a high Chern number can be induced by introducing magnetization into this system.