Twisted nodal wires and three-dimensional quantum spin Hall effect in distorted square-net compounds

TL;DR

This paper predicts that distorted square-net compounds exhibit a three-dimensional quantum spin Hall effect due to twisted nodal wires and nontrivial topology, expanding understanding of topological phases in these materials.

Contribution

It demonstrates that Jahn-Teller distortion enhances the SOC gap and induces 3D QSH effect in square-net compounds, revealing new topological properties and twisted nodal wires.

Findings

Distorted square-net compounds host twisted nodal wires without SOC.

With SOC, these materials become topological crystalline insulators.

Calculated spin Hall conductivity is quantized, confirming nontrivial topology.

Abstract

Recently, square-net materials have attracted lots of attention for the Dirac semimetal phase with negligible spin-orbit coupling (SOC) gap, e.g. ZrSiS/LaSbTe and CaMnSb$_2$. In this paper, we demonstrate that the Jahn-Teller effect enlarges the nontrivial SOC gap in the distorted structure, e.g. LaAsS and SrZnSb$_2$. Its distorted $X$ square-net layer ($X=$ P, As, Sb, Bi) resembles a quantum spin Hall (QSH) insulator. Since these QSH layers are simply stacked in the $\hat{x}$ direction and weakly coupled, three-dimensional QSH effect can be expected in these distorted materials, such as insulating compounds CeAs$_{1+x}$Se$_{1-y}$ and EuCdSb$_2$. Our detailed calculations show that it hosts two twisted nodal wires without SOC [each consists of two noncontractible time-reversal symmetry- and inversion symmetry-protected nodal lines touching at a fourfold degenerate point], while with SOC it becomes a topological crystalline insulator with symmetry indicators $(000; 2)$ and mirror Chern numbers $(0, 0)$. The nontrivial band topology is characterized by a generalized spin Chern number $C_{s+}=2$ when there is a gap between two sets of $\hat{s}_{x}$ eigenvalues. The nontrivial topology of these materials can be well reproduced by our tight-binding model and the calculated spin Hall conductivity is quantized to $\sigma^{x}_{yz} = (\frac{\hbar}{e})\frac{G_xe^2}{\pi h}$ with $G_x$ a reciprocal lattice vector.