Dirac Electrons in Molecular Solids

Hidetoshi Fukuyama, Akito Kobayashi, Yoshikazu Suzumura

Published 2011-03-25, updated 2011-04-26Version 2

Electrons in solids are characterized by the energy bands, which indicate that electrons are considered to be "elementary particles" with specific effective masses and g-factors reflecting features of each solid. There are cases where these particles obey dispersion relationship similar to those of Dirac electrons. Examples include graphite and bismuth both of which are known for many years, together with graphene, a single layer of graphite, recently addressed intensively after its realization. Another recent example is a molecular solid, alpha-ET2I3, which is described by an equation similar to Weyl equation with massless Dirac cones but the coordinate axis is tilted because of the location of cones at off-symmetry points. Orbital susceptibility of such Dirac electrons in graphite and bismuth has been known to have striking features not present in ordinary band electrons but resulting from the inter-band matrix elements of magnetic field. Results of theoretical studies on not only orbital susceptibility but also Hall effect of such Dirac electrons in molecular solids with tilting are introduced in this paper.