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arXiv · 2006.01871

Fermi surface topology and non-trivial Berry phase in the flat-band semimetal Pd$_3$Pb

Abstract

A study of the Fermi surface of the putative topological semimetal Pd$_3$Pb has been carried out using Shubnikov-de Haas (SdH) oscillations measured in fields of up to 60 T. Pd$_3$Pb has garnered attention in the community due to a peculiar Fermi surface that has been proposed theoretically by Ahn, Pickett, and Lee, [Phys. Rev. B 98, 035130 (2018)] to host a dispersion-less band along $X-\Gamma$ as well as multiple triply-degenerate band crossings that, under the influence of spin-orbit coupling, lead to ten four-fold degenerate Dirac points. Analysis of the SdH oscillation data verifies the calculated multi-sheet Fermi surface, revealing a $\Gamma$ centered spheroid that had not been resolved experimentally in prior studies. A comprehensive, angle-dependent analysis of the phase of the SdH oscillations convincingly demonstrates a non-trivial Berry phase for two bands along $\Gamma-R$, supporting the theoretical predictions, while simultaneously evidencing interference between extremal orbits that mimics a trivial Berry phase at intermediate angles.

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Mojammel A. Khan, Po-Hao Chang, Nirmal Ghimire, Terence M. Bretz-Sullivan, Anand Bhattacharya, Jidong S. Jiang, John Singleton, John F. Mitchell. 2020-06-02. Fermi surface topology and non-trivial Berry phase in the flat-band semimetal Pd$_3$Pb. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevb.101.245113

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