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Quantum criticality, a process driven by non-thermal parameters such as magnetic field, doping or pressure, when combined with magnetism and electron correlations, can give rise to quantum phase transitions and novel physics. Here, the authors present experimental evidence for itinerant antiferromagnetism in Ti3Cu4, as well as evidence of a magnetic field-induced quantum critical point.

Abstract Topological semimetals with symmetry-protected band crossings have emerged as a rich landscape to explore intriguing electronic phenomena. Nonsymmorphic symmetries in particular have been shown to play an important role in protecting the crossings along a line (rather than a point) in momentum space. Here we report experimental and theoretical evidence for Dirac nodal line crossings along the Brillouin zone boundaries in PtPb4, arising from the nonsymmorphic symmetry of its crystal structure. Interestingly, while the nodal lines would remain gapless in the absence of spin–orbit coupling (SOC), the SOC, in this case, plays a detrimental role to topology by lifting the band degeneracy everywhere except at a set of isolated points. Nevertheless, the nodal line is observed to have a bandwidth much smaller than that found in density functional theory (DFT). Our findings reveal PtPb4 to be a material system with narrow crossings approximately protected by nonsymmorphic crystalline symmetries.

A first principles many-body approach is employed to calculate the band structure and optical response of nanometer-sized ribbons of SiC. Many-body effects are incorporated using the GW approximation, and excitonic effects are included using the Bethe–Salpeter equation. Both unpassivated and hydrogen-passivated armchair SiC nanoribbons are studied. As a consequence of low dimensionality, large quasiparticle corrections are seen to the Kohn–Sham energy gaps. In both cases quasiparticle band gaps are increased by up to 2 eV, as compared to their Kohn–Sham energy values. Inclusion of electron–hole interactions modifies the absorption spectra significantly, giving rise to strongly bound excitonic peaks in these systems. The results suggest that hydrogen passivated armchair SiC nanoribbons have the potential to be used in optoelectronic devices operating in the UV-Vis region of the spectrum. We also compute the formation energies of these nanoribbons as a function of their widths, and conclude that hydrogen-saturated ribbons will be much more stable as compared to bare ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]