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Title: Spin Polarization and Texture of the Fermi Arcs in the Weyl Fermion Semimetal TaAs

Journal Article · · Physical Review Letters
 [1];  [1];  [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [5];  [4];  [1];  [5];  [5];  [6];  [1];  [1];  [3];  [3];  [3];  [7];  [8] more »;  [9];  [4];  [4];  [4];  [3];  [10];  [1] « less
  1. Princeton Univ., NJ (United States). Dept. of Physics, Lab. for Topological Quantum Matter and Spectroscopy
  2. Princeton Univ., NJ (United States). Dept. of Physics, Lab. for Topological Quantum Matter and Spectroscopy; 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
  3. Centre for Advanced 2D Materials and Graphene Research Centre National Univ. of Singapore (Singapore); National Univ. of Singapore (Singapore). Dept. of Physics
  4. Univ of Tokyo, Chiba (Japan). Inst. for Solid State Physics (ISSP)
  5. Peking Univ., Beijing (China). International Center for Quantum Materials, School of Physics
  6. National Tsing Hua Univ., Hsinchu (Taiwan). Dept. of Physics
  7. National Tsing Hua Univ., Hsinchu (Taiwan). Dept. of Physics; Academia Sinica, Taipei (Taiwan). Inst. of Physics
  8. Northeastern Univ., Boston, MA (United States). Dept. of Physics
  9. Princeton Univ., NJ (United States). Joseph Henry lab., Dept. of Physics
  10. Peking Univ., Beijing (China). International Center for Quantum Materials, School of Physics; Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter, Beijing (China)

A Weyl semimetal is a new state of matter that hosts Weyl fermions as quasiparticle excitations. The Weyl fermions at zero energy correspond to points of bulk-band degeneracy, called Weyl nodes, which are separated in momentum space and are connected only through the crystal’s boundary by an exotic Fermi arc surface state. Here, we experimentally measure the spin polarization of the Fermi arcs in the first experimentally discovered Weyl semimetal TaAs. Our spin data, for the first time, reveal that the Fermi arcs’ spin-polarization magnitude is as large as 80% and lies completely in the plane of the surface. Moreover, we demonstrate that the chirality of the Weyl nodes in TaAs cannot be inferred by the spin texture of the Fermi arcs. The observed nondegenerate property of the Fermi arcs is important for establishing its exact topological nature, which reveals that spins on the arc form a novel type of 2D matter. In addition, the nearly full spin polarization we observed (~80%) may be useful in spintronic applications.

Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC52-06NA25396; FG02-07ER46352; AC02-05CH11231; FG-02-05ER46200
OSTI ID:
1414083
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1239862
Report Number(s):
LA-UR-15-28623; PRLTAO; TRN: US1800618
Journal Information:
Physical Review Letters, Vol. 116, Issue 9; ISSN 0031-9007
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 87 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (29)

Dirac Semimetal Heterostructures: 3D Cd 3 As 2 on 2D Graphene journal July 2018
Fermi Arcs and DC Transport in Nanowires of Dirac and Weyl Semimetals journal December 2019
Quantum transport in topological semimetals under magnetic fields (II) journal April 2019
Photonic Weyl degeneracies in magnetized plasma journal August 2016
Room-temperature chiral charge pumping in Dirac semimetals journal January 2017
Mesoscopic superconductivity and high spin polarization coexisting at metallic point contacts on Weyl semimetal TaAs journal January 2017
Validity of Weyl fermion picture for transition metals monopnictides TaAs, TaP, NbAs, and NbP from ab initio studies journal February 2018
Quasiparticle interference on type-I and type-II Weyl semimetal surfaces: a review journal January 2018
Topological semimetals predicted from first-principles calculations journal June 2016
Imaging electronic states on topological semimetals using scanning tunneling microscopy journal October 2016
Spin- and angle-resolved photoemission on topological materials journal April 2019
Origin of dissipative Fermi arc transport in Weyl semimetals journal June 2016
Topological phases in a Weyl semimetal multilayer journal April 2017
Interband coherence response to electric fields in crystals: Berry-phase contributions and disorder effects journal July 2017
Chiral anomaly in type-I Weyl semimetals: Comprehensive analysis within a semiclassical Fermi surface harmonics approach journal February 2019
Electromagnetic fields induced by an electric charge near a Weyl semimetal journal April 2019
Large Contribution of Fermi Arcs to the Conductivity of Topological Metals journal August 2019
Topological Semimetals Predicted from First-principles Calculations text January 2016
Origin of dissipative Fermi arc transport in Weyl semimetals text January 2016
Mesoscopic superconductivity and high spin polarization coexisting at metallic point contacts on the Weyl semimetal TaAs text January 2016
Imaging electronic states on topological semimetals using scanning tunneling microscopy text January 2016
Weyl and Dirac Semimetals in Three Dimensional Solids text January 2017
Gate-tuned Aharonov-Bohm interference of surface states in a quasi-ballistic Dirac semimetal nanowire text January 2017
Kondo Effect with Weyl Semimetal Fermi Arcs text January 2017
Quasiparticle interference on type-I and type-II Weyl semimetal surfaces: a review text January 2018
Three-dimensional Chiral Lattice Fermion in Floquet Systems text January 2018
Electromagnetic fields induced by an electric charge near a Weyl semimetal text January 2018
Spin- and angle-resolved photoemission on topological materials text January 2018
Large contribution of Fermi arcs to the conductivity of topological metals text January 2019

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