Dominant two-dimensional electron-phonon interactions in the bulk Dirac semimetal Na₃Bi
Abstract
Bulk Dirac semimetals (DSMs) exhibit unconventional transport properties and phase transitions due to their peculiar low-energy band structure. Yet the electronic interactions governing nonequilibrium phenomena in DSMs are not fully understood. Here we show that electron-phonon (e-ph) interactions in a prototypical bulk DSM, Na3Bi, are predominantly two-dimensional (2D). Our first-principles calculations discover a 2D optical phonon with strong e-ph interactions associated with in-plane vibrations of Na atoms. We show that this 2D mode governs e-ph scattering and charge transport in Na₃Bi, and induces a dynamical phase transition to a Weyl semimetal. Our work advances quantitative analysis of electron interactions in topological semimetals and reveals dominant low-dimensional interactions in bulk quantum materials.
Additional Information
D.D. and J.P. thank Ivan Maliyov for fruitful discussions. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DMR-1750613, which provided for method development, and Grant No. OAC-2209262, which provided for code development. M. B. was partially supported by the AFOSR and Clarkson Aerospace under Grant No. FA95502110460. This research used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility located at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, operated under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231.Attached Files
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 122035
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20230628-175652000.1
- DMR-1750613
- NSF
- OAC-2209262
- NSF
- FA95502110460
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR)
- DE-AC02-05CH11231
- Department of Energy (DOE)
- Created
-
2023-06-28Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2023-06-28Created from EPrint's last_modified field