Ni-based transition-metal trichalcogenide monolayer: a strongly correlated quadruple-layer graphene

Abstract

We investigate the electronic physics of layered Ni-based trichalcogenide NiPX$_3$ (X=S, Se), a member of transition-metal trichalcogenides (TMTs) with the chemical formula, ABX$_3$. These Ni-based TMTs distinguish themselves from other TMTs as their low energy electronic physics can be effectively described by the two $e_g$ d-orbitals. The major band kinematics is characterized by the unusal long-range effective hopping between two third nearest-neighbor (TNN) Ni sites in the two-dimensional Ni honeycomb lattice so that the Ni lattice can be equivalently viewed as four weakly coupled honeycomb sublattices. Within each sublattice, the electronic physics is described by a strongly correlated two-orbital graphene-type model that results in an antiferromagnetic (AFM) ground state near half filling. We show that the low energy physics in a paramagnetic state is determined by the eight Dirac cones which locate at $K$, $K'$, $\frac{K}{2}$ and $\frac{K'}{2}$ points in the first Brillouin zone with a strong AFM fluctuation between two $K (K')$ and $\frac{K'}{2} (\frac{K}{2})$ Dirac cones and carrier doping can sufficiently suppress the long-range AFM order and allow other competing orders, such as superconductivity, to emerge. The material can be an ideal system to study many exotic phenomena emerged from strong electron-electron correlation, including a potential $d\pm id$ superconducting state at high temperature.