Emergence of Type-I and Type-II Dirac line nodes in penta-octa-graphene

TL;DR

This paper predicts a new 2D carbon material, penta-octa-graphene, which hosts both type-I and type-II Dirac line nodes, revealing novel topological phases and strain-tunable properties.

Contribution

It introduces penta-octa-graphene as a new 2D carbon allotrope with coexisting Dirac line nodes and provides a theoretical model explaining their emergence.

Findings

Penta-octa-graphene hosts both type-I and type-II Dirac line nodes.

Type-II DLNs can be converted to type-I under 3% biaxial strain.

Type-I DLNs are robust against biaxial strain.

Abstract

Carbon allotropes have a large family of materials with varieties of crystal structures and properties and can realize different topological phases. Using first principles calculations, we predict a new two-dimensional (2D) carbon allotrope, namely penta-octa-graphene, which consists of pentagonal and octagonal carbon rings. We find that penta-octa-graphene can host both type-I and type-II Dirac line nodes (DLNs). The band inversion between conduction and valence bands forms the type-I DLNs and the two highest valence bands form the type-II DLNs. We find that the type-I DLNs are robust to the biaxial strain and the type-II DLNs can be driven to type-I when applying over 3 $\%$ biaxial stretching strain. A lattice model based on the $\pi$ orbitals of carbons is derived to understand the coexistence mechanism of type-I and type-II DLNs in penta-octa-graphene. Possible realizations and characterizations of this penta-octa-graphene in the experiment are also discussed. Our findings shed new light on the study of the coexistence of multiple topological states in the 2D carbon allotropes.