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Abstract:
We consider a two-orbital tight-binding model defined on a layered three-dimensional hexagonal lattice to investigate the properties of topological nodal lines and their associated drumhead surface states. We examine these surface states in centrosymmetric systems, where the bulk nodal lines are of Dirac type (i.e., fourfold degenerate), as well as in noncentrosymmetric systems with strong Rashba and/or Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling, where the bulk nodal lines are of Weyl type (i.e., twofold degenerate). We find that in noncentrosymmetric systems the nodal lines and their corresponding drumhead surface states are fully spin polarized due to spin-orbit coupling. We show that unique signatures of the topologically nontrivial drumhead surface states can be measured by means of quasiparticle scattering interference, which we compute for both Dirac and Weyl nodal line semimetals.
