Topological Semimetals in Square-Net Materials

TL;DR

This paper reviews the crystallographic and electronic properties of square-net materials, highlighting their potential as topological semimetals with diverse phenomena like nodal-line semimetals and quantum Hall effects, aiming to guide future material design.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview linking structure and electronic properties of square-net materials, predicting new topological candidates and summarizing experimental findings.

Findings

Identification of square-net materials as topological semimetals

Correlation between structure and topological electronic properties

Summary of experimental electronic behaviors in these materials

Abstract

Many materials crystallize in structure types that feature a square-net of atoms. While these compounds can exhibit many different properties, some members of this family are topological materials. Within the square-net-based topological materials, the observed properties are rich, ranging for example from nodal-line semimetals to a bulk half-integer quantum Hall effect. Hence, the potential for guided design of topological properties is enormous. Here we provide an overview of the crystallographic and electronic properties of these phases and show how they are linked, with the goal of understanding which square-net materials can be topological, and to predict additional examples. We close the review by discussing the experimentally observed electronic properties in this family.