Electronic Transport Evidence for Topological Nodal-Line Semimetals of ZrGeSe single crystals

TL;DR

This study provides experimental evidence that ZrGeSe single crystals are topological nodal-line semimetals, revealing Dirac fermions and non-trivial Berry phases through detailed electronic transport measurements and theoretical calculations.

Contribution

First comprehensive transport study confirming ZrGeSe as a topological nodal-line semimetal with Dirac fermions and non-trivial Berry phase.

Findings

Observation of resistivity plateaus and large magnetoresistance.

Detection of Dirac fermions via Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations.

Theoretical confirmation of Dirac and normal bands near Fermi surface.

Abstract

Although the band topology of ZrGeSe has been studied via magnetic torque technique, the electronic transport behaviors related to the relativistic Fermions in ZrGeSe are still unknown. Here, we first report systematic electronic transport properties of high-quality ZrGeSe single crystals under magnetic fields up to 14 T. Resistivity plateaus of temperature dependent resistivity curves both in the presence and absence of magnetic fields as well as large, non-saturating magnetoresistance in low-temperature region were observed. By analyzing the temperature- and angular-dependent Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations and fitting it via the Lifshitz-Kosevich (LK) formula with the Berry phase being taken into account, we proved that Dirac fermions dominate the electronic transport behaviors of ZrGeSe and the presence of non-trivial Berry phase. First principles calculations demonstrate that ZrGeSe possesses Dirac bands and normal bands near Fermi surface, resulting in the observed magnetotransport phenomena. These results demonstrate that ZrGeSe is a topological nodal-line semimetal, which provides a fundamentally important platform to study the quantum physics of topological semimetals.