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Visualization of the strain-induced topological phase transition in a quasi-one-dimensional superconductor TaSe3

Nature Materials volume 20, pages 1093–1099 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

Control of the phase transition from topological to normal insulators can allow for an on/off switching of spin current. While topological phase transitions have been realized by elemental substitution in semiconducting alloys, such an approach requires preparation of materials with various compositions. Thus it is quite far from a feasible device application, which demands a reversible operation. Here we use angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and spin- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy to visualize the strain-driven band-structure evolution of the quasi-one-dimensional superconductor TaSe3. We demonstrate that it undergoes reversible strain-induced topological phase transitions from a strong topological insulator phase with spin-polarized, quasi-one-dimensional topological surface states, to topologically trivial semimetal and band insulating phases. The quasi-one-dimensional superconductor TaSe3 provides a suitable platform for engineering the topological spintronics, for example as an on/off switch for a spin current that is robust against impurity scattering.

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Fig. 1: Crystal structure of TaSe3 and its electronic structure revealed by ARPES.
Fig. 2: TSSs near the \(\widetilde{{\rm{X}}}\) point on the \((\overline{1}01)\) surface BZ revealed by laser-SARPES with 7 eV photons.
Fig. 3: Observed topological and metal–insulator phase transitions driven by the in-situ-controlled tensile strain along the chain.
Fig. 4: Calculated topological phase transition and metal–insulator transition driven by the strain along chain direction.

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The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank D. Hirai and Y. Mizukami for fruitful comments on the strain measurements, and also thank S. Sakuragi and T. Yajima for the X-ray diffraction measurements. Use of the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, is supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences under contract no. DE-AC02-76SF00515. This work was supported by the JSPS KAKENHI (grant numbers JP18H01165, JP18K03484, JP19H02683, JP19F19030 and JP19H00651), MEXT Q-LEAP (grant number JPMXS0118068681) and by MEXT under the ‘Program for Promoting Researches on the Supercomputer Fugaku’ (Basic Science for Emergence and Functionality in Quantum Matter Innovative Strongly Correlated Electron Science by Integration of ‘Fugaku’ and Frontier Experiments; project ID hp200132).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Solid State Physics, University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Japan

    Chun Lin, Ryo Noguchi, Kenta Kuroda, Peng Zhang, Cedric Bareille, Kifu Kurokawa, Yosuke Arai, Kaishu Kawaguchi, Hiroaki Tanaka, Koichiro Yaji, Ayumi Harasawa & Takeshi Kondo

  2. Department of Physics, Osaka University, Toyonaka, Japan

    Masayuki Ochi

  3. Department of Applied Physics, Hokkaido University, Kita-ku, Japan

    Masahito Sakoda & Satoshi Tanda

  4. Department of Physics, Tokyo University of Science, Tokyo, Japan

    Atsushi Nomura

  5. Department of Physics, Gakushuin University, Tokyo, Japan

    Masakatsu Tsubota

  6. Research Center for Advanced Measurement and Characterization, National Institute for Materials Science, Ibaraki, Japan

    Koichiro Yaji

  7. Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA, USA

    Makoto Hashimoto & Donghui Lu

  8. Office of University Professor, University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Japan

    Shik Shin

  9. RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science, Wako, Japan

    Ryotaro Arita

  10. Department of Applied Physics, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

    Ryotaro Arita

  11. Center of Education and Research for Topological Science and Technology, Hokkaido University, Kita-ku, Japan

    Satoshi Tanda

  12. Trans-scale Quantum Science Institute, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

    Takeshi Kondo

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Contributions

T.K. and S.T. planned the experimental project. C.L. conducted the ARPES experiments, analysed the data and performed the strain simulations. C.L. and T.K. designed the strain devices. C.L., K. Kuroda, Y.A. and T.K. conducted the strain gauge measurements. R.N., K. Kuroda, P.Z., C.B., K. Kurokawa, Y.A., K. Kawaguchi, H.T., K.Y., A.H., M.H., D.L., S.S. and T.K. supported the ARPES experiment. M.S., A.N., M.T. and S.T. prepared the single crystals. M.O. and R.A. calculated and analysed the theoretical band structure. C.L., M.O. and T.K. wrote the paper. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Takeshi Kondo.

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Peer review information Nature Materials thanks Phil King, Hsin Lin and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Lin, C., Ochi, M., Noguchi, R. et al. Visualization of the strain-induced topological phase transition in a quasi-one-dimensional superconductor TaSe3. Nat. Mater. 20, 1093–1099 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-021-01004-4

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