Insulating Nature of Strongly Correlated Massless Dirac Fermions in an Organic Crystal

Phys Rev Lett. 2016 Jun 3;116(22):226401. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.226401. Epub 2016 May 31.

Abstract

Through resistivity measurements of an organic crystal hosting massless Dirac fermions with a charge-ordering instability, we reveal the effect of interactions among massless Dirac fermions on the charge transport. A low-temperature resistivity upturn appears robustly irrespective of the pressure and is enhanced while approaching the critical pressure of charge ordering, indicating that the insulating behavior originates from short-range Coulomb interactions. The observation of an apparently vanishing gap in the charge-ordered phase accords with the theoretical prediction of nontopological edge states.