No Arabic abstract
We systematically measured the Hall effect in the extremely large magnetoresistance semimetal WTe$_2$. By carefully fitting the Hall resistivity to a two-band model, the temperature dependencies of the carrier density and mobility for both electron- and hole-type carriers were determined. We observed a sudden increase of the hole density below $sim$160~K, which is likely associated with the temperature-induced Lifshitz transition reported by a previous photoemission study. In addition, a more pronounced reduction in electron density occurs below 50~K, giving rise to comparable electron and hole densities at low temperature. Our observations indicate a possible electronic structure change below 50~K, which might be the direct driving force of the electron-hole ``compensation and the extremely large magnetoresistance as well. Numerical simulations imply that this material is unlikely to be a perfectly compensated system.
Extremely large magnetoresistance (XMR) was recently discovered in many non-magnetic materials, while its underlying mechanism remains poorly understood due to the complex electronic structure of these materials. Here, we report an investigation of the $alpha$-phase WP$_2$, a topologically trivial semimetal with monoclinic crystal structure (C2/m), which contrasts to the recently discovered robust type-II Weyl semimetal phase in $beta$-WP$_2$. We found that $alpha$-WP$_2$ exhibits almost all the characteristics of XMR materials: the near-quadratic field dependence of MR, a field-induced up-turn in resistivity following by a plateau at low temperature, which can be understood by the compensation effect, and high mobility of carriers confirmed by our Hall effect measurements. It was also found that the normalized MRs under different magnetic fields has the same temperature dependence in $alpha$-WP$_2$, the Kohler scaling law can describe the MR data in a wide temperature range, and there is no obvious change in the anisotropic parameter $gamma$ value with temperature. The resistance polar diagram has a peanut shape when field is rotated in $textit{ac}$ plane, which can be understood by the anisotropy of Fermi surface. These results indicate that both field-induced-gap and temperature-induced Lifshitz transition are not the origin of up-turn in resistivity in the $alpha$-WP$_2$ semimetal. Our findings establish $alpha$-WP$_2$ as a new reference material for exploring the XMR phenomena.
The non-centrosymmetric Weyl semimetal candidate, MoTe$_2$ was investigated through neutron diffraction and transport measurements at pressures up to 1.5 GPa and at temperatures down to 40 mK. Centrosymmetric and non-centrosymmetric structural phases were found to coexist in the superconducting state. Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations reveal that the strength of the electron-phonon coupling is similar for both crystal structures. Furthermore, it was found that by controlling non-hydrostatic components of stress, it is possible to mechanically control the ground state crystal structure. This allows for the tuning of crystal symmetry in the superconducting phase from centrosymmetric to non-centrosymmetric. DFT calculations support this strain control of crystal structure. This mechanical control of crystal symmetry gives a route to tuning the band topology of MoTe$_2$ and possibly the topology of the superconducting state.
Excitonic insulator (EI) is an intriguing insulating phase of matter, where electrons and holes are bonded into pairs, so called excitons, and form a phase-coherent state via Bose-Einstein Condensation (BEC). Its theoretical concept has been proposed several decades ago, but the followed research is very limited, due to the rare occurrence of EI in natural materials and the lack of manipulating method of excitonic condensation. In this paper, we report the realization of a doping-controlled EI-to-semi-metal transition in Ta$_2$NiSe$_5$ using $in$-$situ$ potassium deposition. Combining with angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), we delineate the evolution of electronic structure through the EI transition with unprecedented precision. The results not only show that Ta$ _2 $NiSe$ _5 $ (TNS) is an EI originated from a semi-metal non-interacting band structure, but also resolve two sequential transitions, which could be attributed to the phase-decoherence and pair-breaking respectively. Our results unveil the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS)-BEC crossover behavior of TNS and demonstrate that its band structure and excitonic binding energy can be tuned precisely via alkali-metal deposition. This paves a way for investigations of BCS-BEC crossover phenomena, which could provide insights into the many-body physics in condensed matters and other many-body systems.
Ultrafast optical pump-probe spectroscopy is used to track carrier dynamics in the large magnetoresistance material WTe$_{2}$. Our experiments reveal a fast relaxation process occurring on a sub-picosecond time scale that is caused by electron-phonon thermalization, allowing us to extract the electron-phonon coupling constant. An additional slower relaxation process, occurring on a time scale of $sim$5-15 picoseconds, is attributed to phonon-assisted electron-hole recombination. As the temperature decreases from 300 K, the timescale governing this process increases due to the reduction of the phonon population. However, below $sim$50 K, an unusual decrease of the recombination time sets in, most likely due to a change in the electronic structure that has been linked to the large magnetoresistance observed in this material.
A number of rare-earth monopnictides have topologically non-trivial band structures together with magnetism and strong electronic correlations. In order to examine whether the antiferromagnetic (AFM) semimetal YbAs ($Trm_N$ = 0.5 K) exhibits such a scenario, we have grown high-quality single crystals using a flux method, and characterized the magnetic properties and electronic structure using specific heat, magnetotransport and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) measurements, together with density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Both ARPES and DFT calculations find no evidence for band