DOE PAGES title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Topological quantum properties of chiral crystals

Journal Article · · Nature Materials
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2];  [3];  [4];  [4]; ORCiD logo [5]; ORCiD logo [6];  [6];  [7]; ORCiD logo [3];  [4];  [8]; ORCiD logo [9]
  1. Princeton Univ., NJ (United States). Dept. of Physics; National Univ. of Singapore (Singapore). Dept of Physics, Centre for Advanced 2D Materials, and Graphene Research Centre; Academia Sinica, Taipei (Taiwan). Inst. of Physics
  2. Princeton Univ., NJ (United States). Dept. of Physics; Stockholm Univ. (Sweden); KTH Royal Inst. of Technology, Stockholm (Sweden); Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA (United States). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
  3. Univ. of Zurich (Switzerland). Dept. of Physics
  4. Princeton Univ., NJ (United States). Dept. of Physics
  5. National Sun Yat-Sen Univ., Kaoshiung (Taiwan). Dept. of Physics
  6. National Univ. of Singapore (Singapore). Dept of Physics, Centre for Advanced 2D Materials, and Graphene Research Centre
  7. National Cheng Kung Univ., Tainan City (Taiwan). Dept. of Physics
  8. National Univ. of Singapore (Singapore). Dept of Physics, Centre for Advanced 2D Materials, and Graphene Research Centre; Academia Sinica, Taipei (Taiwan). Inst. of Physics
  9. Princeton Univ., NJ (United States). Dept. of Physics; Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

Chiral crystals are materials with a lattice structure that has a well-defined handedness due to the lack of inversion, mirror or other roto-inversion symmetries. Although it has been shown that the presence of crystalline symmetries can protect topological band crossings, the topological electronic properties of chiral crystals remain largely uncharacterized. In this paper we show that Kramers–Weyl fermions are a universal topological electronic property of all non-magnetic chiral crystals with spin–orbit coupling and are guaranteed by structural chirality, lattice translation and time-reversal symmetry. Unlike conventional Weyl fermions, they appear at time-reversal-invariant momenta. We identify representative chiral materials in 33 of the 65 chiral space groups in which Kramers–Weyl fermions are relevant to the low-energy physics. We determine that all point-like nodal degeneracies in non-magnetic chiral crystals with relevant spin–orbit coupling carry non-trivial Chern numbers. Kramers–Weyl materials can exhibit a monopole-like electron spin texture and topologically non-trivial bulk Fermi surfaces over an unusually large energy window.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
European Research Council (ERC); Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation; Ministry of Science and Technology of China (MOST); Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics; Singapore National Science Foundation; Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231; FG02-05ER46200; SC0016239
OSTI ID:
1638188
Journal Information:
Nature Materials, Journal Name: Nature Materials Journal Issue: 11 Vol. 17; ISSN 1476-1122
Publisher:
Springer Nature - Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (59)

Helical Fermi arcs and surface states in time-reversal invariant Weyl semimetals journal June 2013
Hourglass Fermions text January 2016
Robust Type-II Weyl Semimetal Phase in Transition Metal Diphosphides XP$_2$ (X = Mo, W) text January 2016
Chiral and Achiral Crystal Structures journal April 2003
Thermodynamically stable magnetic vortex states in magnetic crystals journal December 1994
On unitary representations of the inhomogeneous lorentz group journal March 1989
Efficiency of ab-initio total energy calculations for metals and semiconductors using a plane-wave basis set journal July 1996
Type-II Weyl semimetals journal November 2015
Topological quantum chemistry journal July 2017
Weyl fermions and spin dynamics of metallic ferromagnet SrRuO3 journal June 2016
Quantized circular photogalvanic effect in Weyl semimetals journal July 2017
Classification of stable three-dimensional Dirac semimetals with nontrivial topology journal September 2014
Momentum-space imaging of Cooper pairing in a half-Dirac-gas topological superconductor journal November 2014
Topological materials discovery using electron filling constraints journal October 2017
High-resolution X-ray luminescence extension imaging journal February 2021
Current-induced Orbital and Spin Magnetizations in Crystals with Helical Structure journal July 2015
π Berry phase and Zeeman splitting of Weyl semimetal TaP journal January 2016
Electronic structure, photovoltage, and photocatalytic hydrogen evolution with p-CuBi 2 O 4 nanocrystals journal January 2016
Filling constraints for spin-orbit coupled insulators in symmorphic and nonsymmorphic crystals journal November 2015
Topological insulators, topological superconductors and Weyl fermion semimetals: discoveries, perspectives and outlooks journal September 2015
Phase transition between the quantum spin Hall and insulator phases in 3D: emergence of a topological gapless phase journal February 2008
Phase transition between the quantum spin Hall and insulator phases in 3D: emergence of a topological gapless phase journal September 2007
Topological semimetal and Fermi-arc surface states in the electronic structure of pyrochlore iridates journal May 2011
Existence of bulk chiral fermions and crystal symmetry journal April 2012
Weyl semimetal with broken time reversal and inversion symmetries journal April 2012
Superconductivity of doped Weyl semimetals: Finite-momentum pairing and electronic analog of the 3 He- A phase journal December 2012
Chiral anomaly, charge density waves, and axion strings from Weyl semimetals journal April 2013
Time-reversal-invariant topological superconductivity in doped Weyl semimetals journal July 2014
Bulk spectroscopic measurement of the topological charge of Weyl nodes with resonant x rays journal September 2016
Realizing double Dirac particles in the presence of electronic interactions journal September 2017
Emergence of gapped bulk and metallic side walls in the zeroth Landau level in Dirac and Weyl semimetals journal November 2017
Weyl Semimetal in a Topological Insulator Multilayer journal September 2011
Dirac Semimetal in Three Dimensions journal April 2012
Interacting Weyl Semimetals: Characterization via the Topological Hamiltonian and its Breakdown journal September 2014
Dirac Line Nodes in Inversion-Symmetric Crystals journal July 2015
Gyrotropic Magnetic Effect and the Magnetic Moment on the Fermi Surface journal February 2016
Double Dirac Semimetals in Three Dimensions journal May 2016
Strong Intrinsic Spin Hall Effect in the TaAs Family of Weyl Semimetals journal September 2016
Unconventional Chiral Fermions and Large Topological Fermi Arcs in RhSi journal November 2017
Multiple Types of Topological Fermions in Transition Metal Silicides journal November 2017
Generalized Gradient Approximation Made Simple journal October 1996
Electrical Magnetochiral Anisotropy journal November 2001
Experimental observation of Weyl points journal July 2015
Discovery of a Weyl fermion semimetal and topological Fermi arcs journal July 2015
Evidence for the chiral anomaly in the Dirac semimetal Na3Bi journal September 2015
Beyond Dirac and Weyl fermions: Unconventional quasiparticles in conventional crystals journal July 2016
Electrical Magnetochiral Anisotropy text January 2001
On Unitary Representations of the Inhomogeneous Lorentz Group journal January 1939
Weyl Semimetal in a Topological Insulator Multilayer text January 2011
Weyl semimetal with broken time reversal and inversion symmetries text January 2012
Time-reversal invariant topological superconductivity in doped Weyl semimetals text January 2014
Discovery of a Weyl Fermion Semimetal and Topological Fermi Arcs text January 2015
Dirac Line Nodes in Inversion Symmetric Crystals text January 2015
Type-II Weyl Semimetals text January 2015
Gyrotropic magnetic effect and the magnetic moment on the Fermi surface text January 2015
Beyond Dirac and Weyl fermions: Unconventional quasiparticles in conventional crystals text January 2016
Bulk spectroscopic measurement of the topological charge of Weyl nodes with resonant x-rays text January 2016
Topological Materials Discovery using Electron Filling Constraints text January 2016
Multiple types of topological fermions in transition metal silicides text January 2017

Cited By (51)

Observation of a topological nodal surface and its surface-state arcs in an artificial acoustic crystal journal November 2019
Strong and fragile topological Dirac semimetals with higher-order Fermi arcs journal January 2020
Growth and Strain Engineering of Trigonal Te for Topological Quantum Phases in Non-Symmorphic Chiral Crystals preprint January 2019
Fixing Left and Right: Assignment of Chiral Elemental Crystal Structures using Kikuchi Diffraction preprint January 2020
Flexible and Ultrasoft Inorganic 1D Semiconductor and Heterostructure Systems Based on SnIP journal February 2019
Chirality‐Driven Transportation and Oxidation Prevention by Chiral Selenium Nanoparticles journal March 2020
Chirality‐Driven Transportation and Oxidation Prevention by Chiral Selenium Nanoparticles journal January 2020
Observation of a topological nodal surface and its surface-state arcs in an artificial acoustic crystal journal November 2019
Chiral fermion reversal in chiral crystals journal December 2019
Strong and fragile topological Dirac semimetals with higher-order Fermi arcs journal January 2020
Chirality meets topology journal October 2018
Chiral topological semimetal with multifold band crossings and long Fermi arcs journal May 2019
Topological chiral crystals with helicoid-arc quantum states journal March 2019
Topological metal and noncentrosymmetric superconductor α-BiPd as an efficient candidate for the hydrogen evolution reaction journal January 2019
Multifold nodal points in magnetic materials journal October 2019
Theory for the negative longitudinal magnetoresistance in the quantum limit of Kramers Weyl semimetals journal November 2018
Emergence of topological phases by stacking of two-dimensional lattices with nonsymmorphic symmetry journal December 2018
Spectral and optical properties of Ag 3 Au(Se 2 ,Te 2 ) and dark matter detection journal October 2019
Optical response of the chiral topological semimetal RhSi journal October 2019
Large Fermi arc and robust Weyl semimetal phase in Ag 2 S journal November 2019
Generalized triple-component fermions: Lattice model, Fermi arcs, and anomalous transport journal December 2019
Dynamical conductivity in the multiply degenerate point-nodal semimetal CoSi journal December 2019
Strong bulk photovoltaic effect in chiral crystals in the visible spectrum journal December 2019
Chiral optical response of multifold fermions journal October 2018
Nodal chain semimetal in geometrically frustrated systems journal March 2019
Fermi surface, possible unconventional fermions, and unusually robust resistive critical fields in the chiral-structured superconductor AuBe journal March 2019
Linear optical conductivity of chiral multifold fermions journal April 2019
Higher-Order Topology, Monopole Nodal Lines, and the Origin of Large Fermi Arcs in Transition Metal Dichalcogenides X Te 2 ( X = Mo , W ) journal October 2019
Nonlinear Hall Acceleration and the Quantum Rectification Sum Rule journal December 2019
Photoemission Spectroscopic Evidence for the Dirac Nodal Line in the Monoclinic Semimetal SrAs 3 journal February 2020
Radial Spin Texture in Elemental Tellurium with Chiral Crystal Structure journal March 2020
Difference frequency generation in topological semimetals journal January 2020
Magnetoelectric effects in gyrotropic superconductors journal March 2020
From Dirac Semimetals to Topological Phases in Three Dimensions: A Coupled-Wire Construction journal February 2019
Experimental demonstration of acoustic semimetal with topologically charged nodal surface journal February 2020
Quasiparticle interference evidence of the topological Fermi arc states in chiral fermionic semimetal CoSi journal December 2019
Strong and fragile topological Dirac semimetals with higher-order Fermi arcs text January 2020
Growth and Strain Engineering of Trigonal Te for Topological Quantum Phases in Non-Symmorphic Chiral Crystals journal September 2019
From Dirac semimetals to topological phases in three dimensions: a coupled wire construction text January 2017
Chiral Optical Response of Multifold Fermions text January 2018
Fermi surface, possible unconventional fermions, and unusually robust resistive critical fields in the chiral-structured superconductor AuBe text January 2018
Magnetoelectric Effects in Gyrotropic Superconductors text January 2019
Linear optical conductivity of chiral multifold fermions text January 2019
Multifold nodal points in magnetic materials text January 2019
Difference frequency generation in topological semimetals text January 2019
Strong and Fragile Topological Dirac Semimetals with Higher-Order Fermi Arcs text January 2019
Strong bulk photovoltaic effect in chiral crystal in the visible spectrum text January 2019
Radial spin texture in elemental tellurium with chiral crystal structure text January 2019
Growth and Strain Engineering of Trigonal Te for Topological Quantum Phases in Non-Symmorphic Chiral Crystals preprint January 2019
Theory for the negative longitudinal magnetoresistance in the quantum limit of Kramers Weyl semimetals text January 2020
Theory for the negative longitudinal magnetoresistance in the quantum limit of Kramers Weyl semimetals text January 2018