Directional massless Dirac fermions in a layered van der Waals material with one-dimensional long-range order

T. Y. Yang, Q. Wan, D. Y. Yan, Z. Zhu, Z. W. Wang, C. Peng, Y. B. Huang, R. Yu, J. Hu, Z. Q. Mao, Si Li, Shengyuan A. Yang, Hao Zheng, Jin Feng Jia, Y. G. Shi, N. Xu

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

27 Scopus citations

Abstract

One or a few layers of van der Waals (vdW) materials are promising for applications in nanoscale electronics. Established properties include high mobility in graphene, a large direct gap in monolayer MoS2, the quantum spin Hall effect in monolayer WTe2 and so on. These exciting properties arise from electron quantum confinement in the two-dimensional limit. Here, we use angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy to reveal directional massless Dirac fermions due to one-dimensional confinement of carriers in the layered vdW material NbSi0.45Te2. The one-dimensional directional massless Dirac fermions are protected by non-symmorphic symmetry, and emerge from a stripe-like structural modulation with long-range translational symmetry only along the stripe direction as we show using scanning tunnelling microscopy. Our work not only provides a playground for investigating further the properties of directional massless Dirac fermions, but also introduces a unique component with one-dimensional long-range order for engineering nano-electronic devices based on heterostructures of vdW materials.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)27-33
Number of pages7
JournalNature Materials
Volume19
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 1 2020

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • General Chemistry
  • General Materials Science
  • Condensed Matter Physics
  • Mechanics of Materials
  • Mechanical Engineering

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