Topological Luttinger semimetallic phase accompanied with surface states realized in silicon

TL;DR

This paper reveals that body-centered silicon (BC8-Si) can exhibit a topological Luttinger semimetal phase with surface states, tunable electronic properties, and potential for integration into silicon-based topological quantum devices.

Contribution

The study provides a comprehensive phase diagram of BC8-Si showing its topological Luttinger semimetal phase and surface states, with tunable electronic phases explained by first-principles calculations.

Findings

BC8-Si is a topological Luttinger semimetal with surface states.

Electronic properties of BC8-Si can be tuned by small changes in lattice parameters.

Topological surface states bridge topological matter and silicon, enabling device integration.

Abstract

By means of systematically first-principles calculations and model analysis, a complete phase diagram of the body-centered silicon(BC8-Si) via lattice constant a and internal atomic coordinate x is explored, which demonstrates that BC8-Si is a topological Luttinger semimetal(LSM) accompanied with topologically nontrivial surface states, and the electronic properties of BC8-Si can be further tuned to a normal insulator or topological Dirac semimetal by very tiny changing of a and x. These results successfully explain the contradictory transport reports of BC8-Si. More importantly, the topological surface states in the LSM phase fill in the gap between the topological matters and silicon, which provide an opportunity to integrate the topological quantum devices and silicon chips together.