Transition metal dichalcogenides have attracted research interest over the last few decades due to their interesting structural chemistry, unusual electronic properties, rich intercalation chemistry and wide spectrum of potential applications. Despite the fact that the majority of related research focuses on semiconducting transition-metal dichalcogenides (for example, MoS2), recently discovered unexpected properties of WTe2 are provoking strong interest in semimetallic transition metal dichalcogenides featuring large magnetoresistance, pressure-driven superconductivity and Weyl semimetal states. We investigate the sister compound of WTe2, MoTe2, predicted to be a Weyl semimetal and a quantum spin Hall insulator in bulk and monolayer form, respectively. We find that bulk MoTe2 exhibits superconductivity with a transition temperature of 0.10 K. Application of external pressure dramatically enhances the transition temperature up to maximum value of 8.2 K at 11.7 GPa. The observed dome-shaped superconductivity phase diagram provides insights into the interplay between superconductivity and topological physics.

Topological quantum materials represent a new class of matter with both exotic physical phenomena and novel application potentials. Many Heusler compounds, which exhibit rich emergent properties such as unusual magnetism, superconductivity and heavy fermion behaviour, have been predicted to host non-trivial topological electronic structures. The coexistence of topological order and other unusual properties makes Heusler materials ideal platform to search for new topological quantum phases (such as quantum anomalous Hall insulator and topological superconductor). By carrying out angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and ab initio calculations on rare-earth half-Heusler compounds LnPtBi (Ln=Lu, Y), we directly observe the unusual topological surface states on these materials, establishing them as first members with non-trivial topological electronic structure in this class of materials. Moreover, as LnPtBi compounds are non-centrosymmetric superconductors, our discovery further highlights them as promising candidates of topological superconductors.

We report a study of the magnetic and electronic properties of the non-centrosymmetric half-Heusler antiferromagnet HoPdBi (TN = 2.0 K). Magnetotransport measurements show HoPdBi has a semimetallic behavior with a carrier concentration n = 3.7 × 10(18) cm(-3) extracted from the Shubnikov-de Haas effect. The magnetic phase diagram in the field-temperature plane has been determined by transport, magnetization, and thermal expansion measurements: magnetic order is suppressed at BM ~ 3.6 T for T --> 0. Superconductivity with Tc ~ 1.9 K is found in the antiferromagnetic phase. Ac-susceptibility measurements provide solid evidence for bulk superconductivity below Tc = 0.75 K with a screening signal close to a volume fraction of 100%. The upper critical field shows an unusual linear temperature variation with Bc2(T --> 0) = 1.1 T. We also report electronic structure calculations that classify HoPdBi as a new topological semimetal, with a non-trivial band inversion of 0.25 eV.

Starting from the three-dimensional Dirac semimetal in Na3Bi, we found a topological insulator (TI) in the known compound of NaBaBi by extra pressure. The TI of NaBaBi can be viewed as the distorted version of Na3Bi with breaking inversion symmetry. When the exchange-correlation energy is considered in generalized gradient approximation (GGA), the TI phase has a band inversion between the Bi-p and Na-s orbitals. Since GGA often overestimates the band inversion, we also performed more accurate calculations by using hybrid functional theory (HSE). From HSE calculations we found that NaBaBi exhibits as a trivial insulator at zero pressure, and the other TI phase with p-d inversion can be achieved by pressure. Though both of two TI phases have Dirac-cone-type surface states, they have opposite spin textures. In the upper cone, a lefthanded spin texture exists for the s-p inverted phase (similar to a common TI, e.g., Bi2Se3), whereas a righthanded spin texture appears for the p-d inverted phase. This work presents a prototype model of a TI exhibits righthanded spin texture