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Title: Possible manifestations of the chiral anomaly and evidence for a magnetic field induced topological phase transition in the type-I Weyl semimetal TaAs

Abstract

We studied the magnetoresistivity and the Hall effect of the type-I Weyl semimetal TaAs to address the controversy surrounding its anomalous transport properties in relation to its bulk topological character. For fields and currents along the basal plane, we observe a very pronounced planar Hall effect (PHE) upon field rotation with respect to the crystallographic axes at temperatures as high as T = 100K. Parametric plots of the PHE signal as a function of the longitudinal magnetoresistivity (LMR) collected at T = 10K lead to concentric traces as reported for Na3Bi and GdBiPt. This would suggest that the negative LMR and the PHE observed in TaAs are intrinsically associated with the axial anomaly among its Weyl nodes. For fields nearly along the a axis we observe hysteresis as one surpasses the quantum limit, where the magnetic torque indicates a change in regime as the field increases, i.e., from paramagnetism and diamagnetism due to Weyl fermions above and below the Weyl node(s), respectively, to a paramagnetic one associated with the field-independent n = 0 Landau level. Hysteresis coupled to the overall behavior of the torque would be consistent with a topological phase transition associated with the suppression of the Weyl dispersionmore » at the quantum limit. This transition leads to the suppression of the negative LMR confirming that it is intrinsically associated with the Weyl dispersion. The Hall effect for fields along the c axis reveals two successive changes in slope, or two successive decrements in carrier mobility, one at the quantum limit and a second one at the critical field where a phase transition toward an insulating state was recently reported. This suggests the possibility of two successive phase transitions as function of the field with the higher-field one involving solely the n = 0 Landau level. Finally, for both field orientations we observe Shubnikov–de Haas like oscillations beyond the quantum limit hence involving quasiparticles at fractional filling factors.« less

Authors:
 [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [2];  [2];  [3];  [3];  [4];  [4];  [4];  [4];  [5]; ORCiD logo [1]
+ Show Author Affiliations
  1. Florida State Univ., Tallahassee, FL (United States)
  2. National Taiwan Univ., Taipei (Taiwan)
  3. Univ. of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX (United States)
  4. Princeton Univ., NJ (United States)
  5. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Florida State Univ., Tallahassee, FL (United States); Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); National Science Foundation (NSF); Gordon and Betty Moore Foundations
OSTI Identifier:
1594242
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1856165
Report Number(s):
LA-UR-21-24221
Journal ID: ISSN 2469-9950; PRBMDO; TRN: US2100893
Grant/Contract Number:  
SC0002613; 89233218CNA000001; GBMF4547; DMR-1700030; DMR-1644779
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Physical Review B
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 100; Journal Issue: 11; Journal ID: ISSN 2469-9950
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE; Fermi surface; First order phase transitions; Magnetotransport; Spin-orbit coupling; Topological materials; Weyl semimetal; Magnetization measurements; Resistivity measurements

Citation Formats

Zhang, Q. R., Zeng, B., Chiu, Y. C., Schönemann, R., Memaran, S., Zheng, W., Rhodes, D., Chen, K. -W., Besara, T., Sankar, R., Chou, F., McCandless, G. T., Chan, J. Y., Alidoust, N., Xu, S. -Y., Belopolski, I., Hasan, M. Z., Balakirev, F. F., and Balicas, L. Possible manifestations of the chiral anomaly and evidence for a magnetic field induced topological phase transition in the type-I Weyl semimetal TaAs. United States: N. p., 2019. Web. doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.100.115138.
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Zhang, Q. R., Zeng, B., Chiu, Y. C., Schönemann, R., Memaran, S., Zheng, W., Rhodes, D., Chen, K. -W., Besara, T., Sankar, R., Chou, F., McCandless, G. T., Chan, J. Y., Alidoust, N., Xu, S. -Y., Belopolski, I., Hasan, M. Z., Balakirev, F. F., & Balicas, L. Possible manifestations of the chiral anomaly and evidence for a magnetic field induced topological phase transition in the type-I Weyl semimetal TaAs. United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.100.115138
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Zhang, Q. R., Zeng, B., Chiu, Y. C., Schönemann, R., Memaran, S., Zheng, W., Rhodes, D., Chen, K. -W., Besara, T., Sankar, R., Chou, F., McCandless, G. T., Chan, J. Y., Alidoust, N., Xu, S. -Y., Belopolski, I., Hasan, M. Z., Balakirev, F. F., and Balicas, L. Tue . "Possible manifestations of the chiral anomaly and evidence for a magnetic field induced topological phase transition in the type-I Weyl semimetal TaAs". United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.100.115138. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1594242.
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@article{osti_1594242,
title = {Possible manifestations of the chiral anomaly and evidence for a magnetic field induced topological phase transition in the type-I Weyl semimetal TaAs},
author = {Zhang, Q. R. and Zeng, B. and Chiu, Y. C. and Schönemann, R. and Memaran, S. and Zheng, W. and Rhodes, D. and Chen, K. -W. and Besara, T. and Sankar, R. and Chou, F. and McCandless, G. T. and Chan, J. Y. and Alidoust, N. and Xu, S. -Y. and Belopolski, I. and Hasan, M. Z. and Balakirev, F. F. and Balicas, L.},
abstractNote = {We studied the magnetoresistivity and the Hall effect of the type-I Weyl semimetal TaAs to address the controversy surrounding its anomalous transport properties in relation to its bulk topological character. For fields and currents along the basal plane, we observe a very pronounced planar Hall effect (PHE) upon field rotation with respect to the crystallographic axes at temperatures as high as T = 100K. Parametric plots of the PHE signal as a function of the longitudinal magnetoresistivity (LMR) collected at T = 10K lead to concentric traces as reported for Na3Bi and GdBiPt. This would suggest that the negative LMR and the PHE observed in TaAs are intrinsically associated with the axial anomaly among its Weyl nodes. For fields nearly along the a axis we observe hysteresis as one surpasses the quantum limit, where the magnetic torque indicates a change in regime as the field increases, i.e., from paramagnetism and diamagnetism due to Weyl fermions above and below the Weyl node(s), respectively, to a paramagnetic one associated with the field-independent n = 0 Landau level. Hysteresis coupled to the overall behavior of the torque would be consistent with a topological phase transition associated with the suppression of the Weyl dispersion at the quantum limit. This transition leads to the suppression of the negative LMR confirming that it is intrinsically associated with the Weyl dispersion. The Hall effect for fields along the c axis reveals two successive changes in slope, or two successive decrements in carrier mobility, one at the quantum limit and a second one at the critical field where a phase transition toward an insulating state was recently reported. This suggests the possibility of two successive phase transitions as function of the field with the higher-field one involving solely the n = 0 Landau level. Finally, for both field orientations we observe Shubnikov–de Haas like oscillations beyond the quantum limit hence involving quasiparticles at fractional filling factors.},
doi = {10.1103/PhysRevB.100.115138},
journal = {Physical Review B},
number = 11,
volume = 100,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Sep 17 00:00:00 EDT 2019},
month = {Tue Sep 17 00:00:00 EDT 2019}
}
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    Works referencing / citing this record:

    Photonic spin Hall effect on the surfaces of type-I and type-II Weyl semimetals
    journal, February 2020

    Planar Hall effect in PtSe 2
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    • Li, Zhaoguo; Xiao, Tingting; Zou, Ruijiao
    • Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 127, Issue 5
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