Mapping the unconventional orbital texture in topological crystalline insulators

Understand

The newly discovered topological crystalline insulators (TCIs) harbor a complex band structure involving multiple Dirac cones.

• These materials are potentially highly tunable by external electric field, temperature or strain and could find future applications in field-effect transistors, photodetectors, and nano-mechanical systems.
• Theoretically, it has been predicted that different Dirac cones, offset in energy and momentum-space, might harbor vastly different orbital character, a unique property which if experimentally realized, would present an ideal platform for accomplishing new spintronic devices.
• However, the orbital texture of the Dirac cones, which is of immense importance in determining a variety of materials properties, still remains elusive in TCIs.