Observation of Unpinned Two-Dimensional Dirac States in Antimony Single Layers with Phosphorene Structure

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of unpinned 2D Dirac states in antimony single layers with phosphorene structure, enabling new control and exploration of Dirac fermions beyond traditional pinned states in materials like graphene.

Contribution

It demonstrates the existence of unpinned 2D Dirac states in antimony layers, a novel finding that broadens the understanding of Dirac fermions in 2D materials.

Findings

Unpinned Dirac states observed at generic k-points.

Anisotropic dispersion around Dirac points.

Potential for new physics in unpinned 2D Dirac fermions.

Abstract

The discovery of graphene has stimulated enormous interest in two-dimensional (2D) electron gas with linear band structure. 2D Dirac materials possess many intriguing physical properties such as high carrier mobility and zero-energy Landau level thanks to the relativistic dispersion and chiral spin/pseudospin texture. 2D Dirac states discovered so far are exclusively pinned at high-symmetry points of the Brillouin zone, for example, surface Dirac states at $\overline{\Gamma}$ in topological insulators Bi$_2$Se(Te)$_3$ and Dirac cones at $K$ and $K'$ in graphene. In this work, we report the realization of 2D Dirac states at generic $k$-points in antimony atomic layers with phosphorene structure ($i.e.$ $\alpha$-antimonene). The unpinned nature enables versatile ways to control the locations of the Dirac points in momentum space. In addition, dispersions around the unpinned Dirac points exhibit intrinsically anisotropic behaviors due to the reduced symmetry of generic momentum points. These properties make the $\alpha$-antimonene films a promising platform for exploring interesting physics in unpinned 2D Dirac fermions that are distinct from the conventional Dirac states in graphene.