Three-dimensional (3D) topological Dirac semimetals (TDSs) are a recently proposed state of quantum matter that have attracted increasing attention in physics and materials science. A 3D TDS is not only a bulk analogue of graphene; it also exhibits non-trivial topology in its electronic structure that shares similarities with topological insulators. Moreover, a TDS can potentially be driven into other exotic phases (such as Weyl semimetals, axion insulators and topological superconductors), making it a unique parent compound for the study of these states and the phase transitions between them. Here, by performing angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, we directly observe a pair of 3D Dirac fermions in Cd3As2, proving that it is a model 3D TDS. Compared with other 3D TDSs, for example, β-cristobalite BiO2 (ref. 3) and Na3Bi (refs 4, 5), Cd3As2 is stable and has much higher Fermi velocities. Furthermore, by in situ doping we have been able to tune its Fermi energy, making it a flexible platform for exploring exotic physical phenomena.

We present a comprehensive study of the evolution of the nematic electronic structure of FeSe using high resolution angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), quantum oscillations in the normal state and elastoresistance measurements. Our high resolution ARPES allows us to track the Fermi surface deformation from four-fold to two-fold symmetry across the structural transition at ~87 K which is stabilized as a result of the dramatic splitting of bands associated with dxz and dyz character. The low temperature Fermi surface is that a compensated metal consisting of one hole and two electron bands and is fully determined by combining the knowledge from ARPES and quantum oscillations. A manifestation of the nematic state is the significant increase in the nematic susceptibility as approaching the structural transition that we detect from our elastoresistance measurements on FeSe. The dramatic changes in electronic structure cannot be explained by the small lattice effects and, in the absence of magnetic fluctuations above the structural transition, points clearly towards an electronically driven transition in FeSe stabilized by orbital-charge ordering.Comment: Latex, 8 pages, 4 figure

Methods to generate spin-polarised electronic states in non-magnetic solids are strongly desired to enable all-electrical manipulation of electron spins for new quantum devices. 1 This is generally accepted to require breaking global structural inversion symmetry. [1][2][3][4][5] In contrast, here we present direct evidence from spin-and angleresolved photoemission spectroscopy for a strong spin polarisation of bulk states in the centrosymmetric transition-metal dichalcogenide WSe 2 . We show how this arises due to a lack of inversion symmetry in constituent structural units of the bulk crystal where the electronic states are localised, leading to enormous spin splittings up to ∼ 0.5 eV, with a spin texture that is strongly modulated in both real and momentum space. As well as providing the first experimental evidence for a recently-predicted 'hidden' spin polarisation in inversion-symmetric materials, 6 our study sheds new light on a putative spin-valley coupling in transition-metal dichalcogenides, 7-9 of key importance for using these compounds in proposed valleytronic devices.The powerful combination of inversion symmetryensures that electronic states of non-magnetic centrosymmetric materials must be doubly spin-degenerate. If inversion symmetry is broken, however, relativistic spin-orbit interactions can induce a momentum-dependent spin splitting via an effective magnetic field imposed by spatially-varying potentials. If the * To whom correspondence should be addressed: philip.king@standrews.ac.uk resulting spin polarisations can be controllably created and manipulated, they hold enormous promise to enable a range of new quantum technologies. These include routes towards electrical control of spin precession for spin-based electronics, 1,10 new ways to engineer topological states 11,12 and possible hosts of Majorana fermions for use in quantum computation. 5 To date, there are two generally-accepted categories of materials in which spinpolarised states can be stabilised without magnetism. The first exploits the breaking of structural inversion symmetry of a centrosymmetric host by imposing an electrostatic potential gradient, for example within an asymmetric quantum well, leading to Rashba-split 13 states localised at surfaces or interfaces. [14][15][16][17] In the second, a lack of global inversion symmetry in the unit cell mediates spin splitting of the bulk electronic states, either through a Dresselhaus-type interaction, 18 or a recently discovered bulk form of the Rashba effect. 4,19 Here, we present the first experimental observation of a third distinct class: a material which has bulk inversion symmetry but nonetheless exhibits a large spin polarisation of its bulk electronic states. We demonstrate this for the transition-metal dichalcogenide 2H-WSe 2 . This layered compound is composed of stacked Se-W-Se planes (Fig. 1(a)), each of which contains an in-plane net dipole moment which is proposed to lead to a strong spin-valley coupling for an isolated monolayer. 7,8,20 The bulk unit cell contains two s...

Surfaces and interfaces o er new possibilities for tailoring the many-body interactions that dominate the electrical and thermal properties of transition metal oxides 1-4 . Here, we use the prototypical two-dimensional electron liquid (2DEL) at the SrTiO 3 (001) surface 5-7 to reveal a remarkably complex evolution of electron-phonon coupling with the tunable carrier density of this system. At low density, where superconductivity is found in the analogous 2DEL at the LaAlO 3 /SrTiO 3 interface 8-13 , our angle-resolved photoemission data show replica bands separated by 100 meV from the main bands. This is a hallmark of a coherent polaronic liquid and implies long-range coupling to a single longitudinal optical phonon branch. In the overdoped regime the preferential coupling to this branch decreases and the 2DEL undergoes a crossover to a more conventional metallic state with weaker short-range electron-phonon interaction. These results place constraints on the theoretical description of superconductivity and allow a unified understanding of the transport properties in SrTiO 3 -based 2DELs.Carrier concentration is a key parameter defining the ground state of correlated electron systems. At the LaAlO 3 /SrTiO 3 interface, the 2DEL density can be tailored by field-effect gating. As the system is depleted of carriers, its ground state evolves from a high-mobility 2DEL 4 into a two-dimensional superconductor 8-10 with pseudogap behaviour 11 and possible pairing above T c (ref. 12). An analogous 2DEL can be induced by doping the (001) surface of SrTiO 3 . As for the interface, the surface 2DEL is confined by a band-bending potential in SrTiO 3 and consists of an orbitally polarized ladder of quantum confined Ti t 2g electrons that are highly mobile in the surface plane [5][6][7]14 . Thus far, the surface 2DEL has been studied only at carrier densities around 2 × 10 14 cm −2 , approximately a factor of five higher than typically observed at the LaAlO 3 /SrTiO 3 interface [5][6][7] . In the following, we present ARPES data extending to lower carrier densities that are directly comparable to the LaAlO 3 /SrTiO 3 interface. We achieve this by preparing SrTiO 3 (001) wafers in situ, which results in well-ordered clean surfaces that can be studied by ARPES over extended timescales, as they are less susceptible to the ultraviolet-induced formation of charged oxygen vacancies reported for cleaved SrTiO 3 5,7,15,16 . Details of the sample preparation are given in Methods. Figure 1a shows an energy-momentum intensity map for a 2DEL with a carrier density of n 2D ≈ 2.9 × 10 13 cm −2 estimated from the Luttinger volume of the first light subband and the two equivalent heavy subbands (see Supplementary Section 2). The most striking features of this data are replica bands at higher binding energy following the dispersion of the primary quasiparticle (QP) bands. The replica bands are all separated by approximately 100 meV and progressively lose intensity, but can be visualized up to the third replica in the curvature plot shown in Fi...

We report a combined experimental and theoretical study of the candidate type-II Weyl semimetal MoTe 2 . Using laser-based angle-resolved photoemission, we resolve multiple distinct Fermi arcs on the inequivalent top and bottom (001) surfaces. All surface states observed experimentally are reproduced by an electronic structure calculation for the experimental crystal structure that predicts a topological Weyl semimetal state with eight type-II Weyl points. We further use systematic electronic structure calculations simulating different Weyl point arrangements to discuss the robustness of the identified Weyl semimetal state and the topological character of Fermi arcs in MoTe 2 .

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We report angle-resolved photoemission experiments resolving the distinct electronic structure of the inequivalent top and bottom (001) surfaces of WTe 2 . On both surfaces, we identify a surface state that forms a large Fermi arc emerging out of the bulk electron pocket. Using surface electronic structure calculations, we show that these Fermi arcs are topologically trivial and that their existence is independent of the presence of type-II Weyl points in the bulk band structure. This implies that the observation of surface Fermi arcs alone does not allow the identification of WTe 2 as a topological Weyl semimetal. We further use the identification of the two different surfaces to clarify the number of Fermi surface sheets in WTe 2 . DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.94.121112 Transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have long been studied in many-body physics as model systems for metalinsulator transitions, multiband superconductivity, and charge density waves [1][2][3]. In recent years, the interest in TMDs intensified because of the promising optoelectronic properties of monolayer or few-layer devices based on hexagonal semiconducting MX 2 compounds with M = W,Mo and X = Se,S [4,5]. Unlike these materials, WTe 2 crystallizes in the orthorhombic, noncentrosymmetric 1T structure (P mn2 1 space group) and is semimetallic due to a small overlap of valence and conduction bands at the Fermi level [6,7]. Recent theoretical work [8] predicts that WTe 2 is an example of a new type of Weyl semimetal with strongly tilted Weyl cones that arise from topologically protected crossings of valence and conduction bands causing touching points between electron and hole pockets near the Fermi level. In type-I Weyl semimetals, realized for example in TaAs [9][10][11][12][13], the projections of opposite chirality Weyl points onto a surface are isolated from the bulk continuum and must be connected by well-defined Fermi arcs. This is not generally the case for type-II Weyl points, which are necessarily accompanied by bulk carrier pockets. The surface Fermi arcs corresponding to the bulk Weyl points in these materials can emerge within the projection of the bulk carrier pockets, rendering the robust identification of their topological nature challenging. Indeed, very recent angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) experiments on the related Mo x W 1-x Te 2 and MoTe 2 systems report conflicting interpretations of the topological character of potential surface states [14][15][16]. ARPES studies on pure WTe 2 have to date not reported any surface states [17][18][19].In addition, WTe 2 is attracting interest because of its nonsaturating magnetoresistance [7] and the recent discovery of pressure induced superconductivity [20,21]. A possible relation between these phenomena and the topological nature of the low-energy surface excitations in WTe 2 is an intriguing prospect but has not yet been established. To date, even the basic bulk electronic structure underlying these phenomena remains controversial. The complex magnetotransport proper...