Violation of Ohm’s law in a Weyl metal [A hallmark of the Weyl metal state: Breakdown of Ohm's law]
- Pohang Univ. of Science and Technology (POSTECH), Pohang (Republic of Korea); Institute for Basic Science (IBS), Pohang (Republic of Korea)
- Pohang Univ. of Science and Technology (POSTECH), Pohang (Republic of Korea)
- Yamagata Univ., Yamagata (Japan)
- Florida State Univ., Tallahassee, FL (United States); Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Daegu Univ., Gyeonbuk (Korea)
Ohm’s law is a fundamental paradigm in the electrical transport of metals. Any transport signatures violating Ohm’s law would give an indisputable fingerprint for a novel metallic state. Here, we uncover the breakdown of Ohm’s law owing to a topological structure of the chiral anomaly in the Weyl metal phase. We observe nonlinear I–V characteristics in Bi0.96Sb0.04 single crystals in the diffusive limit, which occurs only for a magnetic-field-aligned electric field (E∥B). The Boltzmann transport theory with the charge pumping effect reveals the topological-in-origin nonlinear conductivity, and it leads to a universal scaling function of the longitudinal magnetoconductivity, which completely describes our experimental results. Furthermore, as a hallmark of Weyl metals, the nonlinear conductivity provides a venue for nonlinear electronics, optical applications, and the development of a topological Fermi-liquid theory beyond the Landau Fermi-liquid theory.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- National Science Foundation (NSF); USDOE
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC52-06NA25396; IBS-R014-D1; DMR-1157490
- OSTI ID:
- 1398920
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-17-22745
- Journal Information:
- Nature Materials, Vol. 16; ISSN 1476-1122
- Publisher:
- Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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