APL Materials (Nov 2023)

Tuning the band topology of GdSb by epitaxial strain

  • Hadass S. Inbar,
  • Dai Q. Ho,
  • Shouvik Chatterjee,
  • Aaron N. Engel,
  • Shoaib Khalid,
  • Connor P. Dempsey,
  • Mihir Pendharkar,
  • Yu Hao Chang,
  • Shinichi Nishihaya,
  • Alexei V. Fedorov,
  • Donghui Lu,
  • Makoto Hashimoto,
  • Dan Read,
  • Anderson Janotti,
  • Christopher J. Palmstrøm

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0155218
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 11
pp. 111106 – 111106-9

Abstract

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Rare-earth monopnictide (RE-V) semimetal crystals subjected to hydrostatic pressure have shown interesting trends in magnetoresistance, magnetic ordering, and superconductivity, with theory predicting pressure-induced band inversion. Yet, thus far, there have been no direct experimental reports of interchanged band order in RE-Vs due to strain. This work studies the evolution of band topology in biaxially strained GdSb(001) epitaxial films using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) and density functional theory (DFT). As biaxial strain is tuned from tensile to compressive strain, the gap between the hole and the electron bands dispersed along [001] decreases. The conduction and valence band shifts seen in DFT and ARPES measurements are explained by a tight-binding model that accounts for the orbital symmetry of each band. Finally, we discuss the effect of biaxial strain on carrier compensation and magnetic ordering temperature.