Criteria for Directly Detecting Topological Fermi Arcs in Weyl Semimetals
Abstract
The recent discovery of the first Weyl semimetal in TaAs provides the first observation of a Weyl fermion in nature and demonstrates a novel type of anomalous surface state, the Fermi arc. Like topological insulators, the bulk topological invariants of a Weyl semimetal are uniquely fixed by the surface states of a bulk sample. We present a set of distinct conditions, accessible by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), each of which demonstrates topological Fermi arcs in a surface state band structure, with minimal reliance on calculation. We also apply these results to TaAs and NbP. For the first time, we rigorously demonstrate a nonzero Chern number in TaAs by counting chiral edge modes on a closed loop. Furthermore, we show that it is unreasonable to directly observe Fermi arcs in NbP by ARPES within available experimental resolution and spectral linewidth. Our results are general and apply to any new material to demonstrate a Weyl semimetal.
- Authors:
-
- Princeton Univ., NJ (United States). Lab. for Topological Quantum Matter and Spectroscopy
- National Univ. of Singapore (Singapore). Centre for Advanced 2D Materials and Graphene Research Centre and Dept. of PHysics
- Peking Univ., Beijing (China). International Center for Quantum Materials
- Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States). Condensed Matter and Magnet Science Group; Univ. of Central Florida, Orlando, FL (United States). Dept. of Physics
- Princeton Univ., NJ (United States). Lab. for Topological Quantum Matter and Spectroscopy; National Tsing Hua Univ., Hsinchu (Taiwan). Dept. of Physics
- National Univ. of Singapore (Singapore). Centre for Advanced 2D Materials and Graphene Research Centre and Dept. of PHysics; Northeastern Univ., Boston, MA (United States). Dept. of Physics
- Northeastern Univ., Boston, MA (United States). Dept. of Physics
- National Tsing Hua Univ., Hsinchu (Taiwan). Dept. of Physics; Academia Sinica, Taipei (Taiwan). Inst. of Physics
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1352386
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1237788
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-17-22127
Journal ID: ISSN 0031-9007; PRLTAO
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC52-06NA25396; FG02-07ER46352; AC02-05CH11231
- Resource Type:
- Journal Article: Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Physical Review Letters
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 116; Journal Issue: 6; Journal ID: ISSN 0031-9007
- Publisher:
- American Physical Society (APS)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 36 MATERIALS SCIENCE; Material Science
Citation Formats
Belopolski, Ilya, Xu, Su-Yang, Sanchez, Daniel S., Chang, Guoqing, Guo, Cheng, Neupane, Madhab, Zheng, Hao, Lee, Chi-Cheng, Huang, Shin-Ming, Bian, Guang, Alidoust, Nasser, Chang, Tay-Rong, Wang, BaoKai, Zhang, Xiao, Bansil, Arun, Jeng, Horng-Tay, Lin, Hsin, Jia, Shuang, and Hasan, M. Zahid. Criteria for Directly Detecting Topological Fermi Arcs in Weyl Semimetals. United States: N. p., 2016.
Web. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.066802.
Belopolski, Ilya, Xu, Su-Yang, Sanchez, Daniel S., Chang, Guoqing, Guo, Cheng, Neupane, Madhab, Zheng, Hao, Lee, Chi-Cheng, Huang, Shin-Ming, Bian, Guang, Alidoust, Nasser, Chang, Tay-Rong, Wang, BaoKai, Zhang, Xiao, Bansil, Arun, Jeng, Horng-Tay, Lin, Hsin, Jia, Shuang, & Hasan, M. Zahid. Criteria for Directly Detecting Topological Fermi Arcs in Weyl Semimetals. United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.066802
Belopolski, Ilya, Xu, Su-Yang, Sanchez, Daniel S., Chang, Guoqing, Guo, Cheng, Neupane, Madhab, Zheng, Hao, Lee, Chi-Cheng, Huang, Shin-Ming, Bian, Guang, Alidoust, Nasser, Chang, Tay-Rong, Wang, BaoKai, Zhang, Xiao, Bansil, Arun, Jeng, Horng-Tay, Lin, Hsin, Jia, Shuang, and Hasan, M. Zahid. Wed .
"Criteria for Directly Detecting Topological Fermi Arcs in Weyl Semimetals". United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.066802. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1352386.
@article{osti_1352386,
title = {Criteria for Directly Detecting Topological Fermi Arcs in Weyl Semimetals},
author = {Belopolski, Ilya and Xu, Su-Yang and Sanchez, Daniel S. and Chang, Guoqing and Guo, Cheng and Neupane, Madhab and Zheng, Hao and Lee, Chi-Cheng and Huang, Shin-Ming and Bian, Guang and Alidoust, Nasser and Chang, Tay-Rong and Wang, BaoKai and Zhang, Xiao and Bansil, Arun and Jeng, Horng-Tay and Lin, Hsin and Jia, Shuang and Hasan, M. Zahid},
abstractNote = {The recent discovery of the first Weyl semimetal in TaAs provides the first observation of a Weyl fermion in nature and demonstrates a novel type of anomalous surface state, the Fermi arc. Like topological insulators, the bulk topological invariants of a Weyl semimetal are uniquely fixed by the surface states of a bulk sample. We present a set of distinct conditions, accessible by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), each of which demonstrates topological Fermi arcs in a surface state band structure, with minimal reliance on calculation. We also apply these results to TaAs and NbP. For the first time, we rigorously demonstrate a nonzero Chern number in TaAs by counting chiral edge modes on a closed loop. Furthermore, we show that it is unreasonable to directly observe Fermi arcs in NbP by ARPES within available experimental resolution and spectral linewidth. Our results are general and apply to any new material to demonstrate a Weyl semimetal.},
doi = {10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.066802},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1352386},
journal = {Physical Review Letters},
issn = {0031-9007},
number = 6,
volume = 116,
place = {United States},
year = {2016},
month = {2}
}
Web of Science
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