Realistic Floquet Semimetal with Exotic Topological Linkages between Arbitrarily Many Nodal Loops

Linhu Li, Ching Hua Lee, and Jiangbin Gong
Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 036401 – Published 18 July 2018
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Abstract

Valence and conduction bands in nodal loop semimetals (NLSMs) touch along closed loops in momentum space. If such loops can proliferate and link intricately, NLSMs become exotic topological phases, which require nonlocal hopping and are therefore unrealistic in conventional quantum materials or cold atom systems alike. In this Letter, we show how this hurdle can be surmounted through an experimentally feasible periodic driving scheme. In particular, by tuning the period of a two-step periodic driving or certain experimentally accessible parameters, we can generate arbitrarily many nodal loops that are linked with various levels of complexity. Furthermore, we propose to use both a Berry-phase related winding number and the Alexander polynomial topological invariant to characterize the fascinating linkages among the nodal loops. This Letter thus presents a class of exotic Floquet topological phases that has hitherto not been proposed in any realistic setup. Possible experimental confirmation of such exotic topological phases is also discussed.

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  • Received 26 March 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.036401

© 2018 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Linhu Li1, Ching Hua Lee1,2,*, and Jiangbin Gong1,†

  • 1Department of Physics, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117551, Republic of Singapore
  • 2Institute of High Performance Computing, Singapore 138632, Republic of Singapore

  • *calvin-lee@ihpc.a-star.edu.sg
  • phygj@nus.edu.sg

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Issue

Vol. 121, Iss. 3 — 20 July 2018

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