Engineering Dirac Materials: Metamorphic InAs_1–<i>x</i>Sb_<i>x</i>/InAs_1–<i>y</i>Sb_<i>y</i> Superlattices with Ultralow Bandgap

Quasiparticles with Dirac-type dispersion can be observed in nearly gapless bulk semiconductors alloys in which the bandgap is controlled through the material composition. We demonstrate that the Dirac dispersion can be realized in short-period InAs_1–<i>x</i>Sb_<i>x</i>/InAs_1–<i>y</i>Sb_<i>y</i> metamorphic superlattices with the bandgap tuned to zero by adjusting the superlattice period and layer strain. The new material has anisotropic carrier dispersion: the carrier energy associated with the in-plane motion is proportional to the wave vector and characterized by the Fermi velocity <i>v</i>_F, and the dispersion corresponding to the motion in the growth direction is quadratic. Experimental estimate of the Fermi velocity gives <i>v</i>_F = 6.7 × 10⁵ m/s. Remarkably, the Fermi velocity in this system can be controlled by varying the overlap between electron and hole states in the superlattice. Extreme design flexibility makes the short-period metamorphic InAs_1–<i>x</i>Sb_<i>x</i>/InAs_1–<i>y</i>Sb_<i>y</i> superlattice a new prospective platform for studying the effects of charge-carrier chirality and topologically nontrivial states in structures with the inverted bandgaps