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  • Letter

Cascade of pressure-driven phase transitions in the topological nodal-line superconductor PbTaSe2

Tahir Murtaza1,2, Haiyang Yang3, Jiajia Feng4, Yi Shen5, Yongheng Ge5, Yi Liu1, Chunqiang Xu1,4, Wenhe Jiao1, Yaokang Lv6 et al.

Christopher J. Ridley7, Craig L. Bull7,8, Pabitra K. Biswas7, Raman Sankar9, Wei Zhou10, Bin Qian10, Xuefan Jiang10, Zhenjie Feng11, Yonghui Zhou3, Ziming Zhu5,*, Zhaorong Yang3,†, and Xiaofeng Xu1,‡

  • 1Key Laboratory of Quantum Precision Measurement of Zhejiang Province, Department of Applied Physics, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310023, China
  • 2College of Information Engineering, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310023, China
  • 3Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Condensed Matter Physics at Extreme Conditions, High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei 10 230031, China
  • 4School of Physics and Key Laboratory of MEMS of the Ministry of Education, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, China
  • 5Key Laboratory of Low-Dimensional Quantum Structures and Quantum Control of Ministry of Education, Department of Physics and Synergetic Innovation Center for Quantum Effects and Applications, Hunan Normal University, Changsha 410081, China
  • 6College of Chemical Engineering, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou 310014, China
  • 7ISIS Pulsed Neutron and Muon Source, STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Harwell Campus, Didcot, Oxfordshire OX11 0QX, United Kingdom
  • 8School of Chemistry, University of Edinburgh, David Brewster Road, Edinburgh EH9 3FJ, United Kingdom
  • 9Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, Nankang, Taipei 11529, Taiwan
  • 10Department of Physics, Changshu Institute of Technology, Changshu 215500, China
  • 11Materials Genome Institute, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China

  • *zimingzhu@hunnu.edu.cn
  • †zryang@issp.ac.cn
  • ‡xuxiaofeng@zjut.edu.cn
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Phys. Rev. B 106, L060501 – Published 2 August, 2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.106.L060501

Abstract

We report a succession of pressure-tuned structural transitions in the topological nodal-line superconductor PbTaSe2, evidenced from synchrotron x-ray diffraction, elastic neutron scattering, Raman spectroscopy, and electrical transport measurements up to 56 GPa, accompanied by first-principles calculations to uncover the evolution of the underlying electronic structure. In contrast to the previously proposed small shift of the Pb Wyckoff coordinate in the sub-GPa regime, our study reveals that it is rather a transition from P6¯m2 (α phase) to P63mc (β phase), subsequently followed by a transition to P6/mmm (γ phase) at ∼7.5 GPa and to Pmmm (δ phase) at ∼44 GPa. In addition, the first-principles calculations unambiguously demonstrate the multiple types of topological fermions associated with these different pressure-driven structures. Collectively, our results not only present the intriguing structural transitions in this topological PbTaSe2 superconductor, they also provide the impetus to study topological phase transitions and their physical consequences in a broader class of topological materials.

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Phys. Rev. B 106, L060501– Published 2 August, 2022
  • Received 27 May 2022
  • Revised 3 July 2022
  • Accepted 22 July 2022
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