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Deep-lying semi-Dirac fermions in hexagonal close-packed cadmium
Alaska Subedi1, Kamran Behnia2
1CPHT, CNRS, École polytechnique, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, 91120 Palaiseau, France.
None:
Semi-Dirac fermions are massless in one direction and massive in the perpendicular directions. Such quasiparticles have been proposed in various contexts in condensed matter. Using first principles calculations, we identify a pair of semi-Dirac bands anti-crossing at -3 eV below the Fermi level in the electronic structure of hexagonal close-packed cadmium. The linear out-of-plane dispersion is kept up to the Fermi level. We demonstrate that the dichotomy between the linear and quadratic dispersions is driven by an orientation-sensitive hybridization between thesandpzorbitals. The upper semi-Dirac band produces a lens-shaped nonellipsoidal Fermi sheet whose cross-section area has ak-dependence that is in excellent agreement with the experimentally measured period of Sondheimer oscillations.
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