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Updated: Mar 1, 2026

Fabrication of Three-Dimensional Graphene-Based Polyhedrons via Origami-Like Self-Folding
Published on: September 23, 2018
Three-dimensional Pentagon Carbon with a genesis of emergent fermions
Chengyong Zhong1, Yuanping Chen1, Zhi-Ming Yu2
1School of Physics and Optoelectronics, Xiangtan University, Xiangtan, Hunan 411105, China.
Abstract:
Carbon, the basic building block of our universe, enjoys a vast number of allotropic structures. Owing to its bonding characteristic, most carbon allotropes possess the motif of hexagonal rings. Here, with first-principles calculations, we discover a new metastable three-dimensional carbon allotrope entirely composed of pentagon rings. The unique structure of this Pentagon Carbon leads to extraordinary electronic properties, making it a cornucopia of emergent topological fermions. Under lattice strain, Pentagon Carbon exhibits topological phase transitions, generating a series of novel quasiparticles, from isospin-1 triplet fermions to triply degenerate fermions and further to Hopf-link Weyl-loop fermions. Its Landau level spectrum also exhibits distinct features, including a huge number of almost degenerate chiral Landau bands, implying pronounced magneto-transport signals. Our work not only discovers a remarkable carbon allotrope with highly rare structural motifs, it also reveals a fascinating hierarchical particle genesis with novel topological fermions beyond the Dirac and Weyl paradigm.
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