Litcius/Paper detail

Observation of Weyl fermions in a magnetic non-centrosymmetric crystal

Daniel S. Sanchez, Guoqing Chang, Ilya Belopolski, Hong Lu, Jia-Xin Yin, Nasser Alidoust, Xitong Xu, Tyler A. Cochran, Xiao Zhang, Yi Bian, Songtian S. Zhang, Yi-Yuan Liu, Jie Ma, Guang Bian, Hsin Lin, Su-Yang Xu, Shuang Jia, M. Zahid Hasan

2020Nature Communications83 citationsDOIOpen Access PDF

Abstract

The absence of inversion symmetry in non-centrosymmetric materials has a fundamental role in the emergence of a vast number of fascinating phenomena, like ferroelectricity, second harmonic generation, and Weyl fermions. The removal of time-reversal symmetry in such systems further extends the variety of observable magneto-electric and topological effects. Here we report the striking topological properties in the non-centrosymmetric spin-orbit magnet PrAlGe by combining spectroscopy and transport measurements. By photoemission spectroscopy below the Curie temperature, we observe topological Fermi arcs that correspond to projected topological charges of ±1 in the surface Brillouin zone. In the bulk, we observe the linear energy-dispersion of the Weyl fermions. We further observe a large anomalous Hall response in our magneto-transport measurements, which is understood to arise from diverging bulk Berry curvature fields associated with the Weyl band structure. These results establish a novel Weyl semimetal phase in magnetic non-centrosymmetric PrAlGe.

Topics & Concepts

Berry connection and curvatureBrillouin zoneWeyl semimetalPhysicsPoint reflectionCondensed matter physicsFermionSymmetry (geometry)Surface statesObservableTopology (electrical circuits)SemimetalFermi surfaceGeometric phaseAngle-resolved photoemission spectroscopyFermi Gamma-ray Space TelescopePhotoemission spectroscopyFerromagnetismCrystal (programming language)Electronic band structureQuantum mechanicsTopological insulatorCurvatureHall effectFermi levelDifferential geometryTheoretical physicsMagnetismMagnetizationPhase (matter)MAJORANATopological Materials and PhenomenaChemical and Physical Properties of Materials2D Materials and Applications