No Arabic abstract
Recent discovery of both gapped and gapless topological phases in weakly correlated electron systems has introduced various relativistic particles and a number of exotic phenomena in condensed matter physics. The Weyl fermion is a prominent example of three dimensional (3D), gapless topological excitation, which has been experimentally identified in inversion symmetry breaking semimetals. However, their realization in spontaneously time reversal symmetry (TRS) breaking magnetically ordered states of correlated materials has so far remained hypothetical. Here, we report a set of experimental evidence for elusive magnetic Weyl fermions in Mn$_3$Sn, a non-collinear antiferromagnet that exhibits a large anomalous Hall effect even at room temperature. Detailed comparison between our angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) measurements and density functional theory (DFT) calculations reveals significant bandwidth renormalization and damping effects due to the strong correlation among Mn 3$d$ electrons. Moreover, our transport measurements have unveiled strong evidence for the chiral anomaly of Weyl fermions, namely, the emergence of positive magnetoconductance only in the presence of parallel electric and magnetic fields. The magnetic Weyl fermions of Mn$_3$Sn have a significant technological potential, since a weak field ($sim$ 10 mT) is adequate for controlling the distribution of Weyl points and the large fictitious field ($sim$ a few 100 T) in the momentum space. Our discovery thus lays the foundation for a new field of science and technology involving the magnetic Weyl excitations of strongly correlated electron systems.
Using soft x-ray angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy we probed the bulk electronic structure of Td MoTe2. We found that on-site Coulomb interaction leads to a Lifshitz transition, which is essential for a precise description of the electronic structure. A hybrid Weyl semimetal state with a pair of energy bands touching at both type-I and type-II Weyl nodes is indicated by comparing the experimental data with theoretical calculations. Unveiling the importance of Coulomb interaction opens up a new route to comprehend the unique properties of MoTe2, and is significant for understanding the interplay between correlation effects, strong spin-orbit coupling and superconductivity in this van der Waals material.
Mn$_{3}$Sn is a non-collinear antiferromagnet which displays a large anomalous Hall effect at room temperature. It is believed that the principal contribution to its anomalous Hall conductivity comes from Berry curvature. Moreover, dc transport and photoemission experiments have confirmed that Mn$_{3}$Sn may be an example of a time-reversal symmetry breaking Weyl semimetal. Due to a small, but finite moment in the room temperature inverse triangular spin structure, which allows control of the Hall current with external field, this material has garnered much interest for next generation memory devices and THz spintronics applications. In this work, we report a THz range study of oriented Mn$_{3}$Sn thin films as a function of temperature. At low frequencies we found the optical conductivity can be well described by a single Drude oscillator. The plasma frequency is strongly suppressed in a temperature dependent fashion as one enters the 260 K helical phase. This may be associated with partial gapping of the Fermi surfaces that comes from breaking translational symmetry along the c-axis. The scattering rate shows quadratic temperature dependence below 200 K, highlighting the possible important role of interactions in this compound.
The concept of a topological Kondo insulator (TKI) has been brought forward as a new class of topological insulators in which non-trivial surface states reside in the bulk Kondo band gap at low temperature due to the strong spin-orbit coupling [1-3]. In contrast to other three-dimensional (3D) topological insulators (e.g. Bi2Se3), a TKI is truly insulating in the bulk [4]. Furthermore, strong electron correlations are present in the system, which may interact with the novel topological phase. Applying spin- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (SARPES) to the Kondo insulator SmB6, a promising TKI candidate, we reveal that the surface states of SmB6 are spin polarized, and the spin is locked to the crystal momentum. Counter-propagating states (i.e. at k and -k) have opposite spin polarizations protected by time-reversal symmetry. Together with the odd number of Fermi surfaces of surface states between the 4 time-reversal invariant momenta in the surface Brillouin zone [5], these findings prove, for the first time, that SmB6 can host non-trivial topological surface states in a full insulating gap in the bulk stemming from the Kondo effect. Hence our experimental results establish that SmB6 is the first realization of a 3D TKI. It can also serve as an ideal platform for the systematic study of the interplay between novel topological quantum states with emergent effects and competing order induced by strongly correlated electrons.
Strong spin-orbit coupling fosters exotic electronic states such as topological insulators and superconductors, but the combination of strong spin-orbit and strong electron-electron interactions is just beginning to be understood. Central to this emerging area are the 5d transition metal iridium oxides. Here, in the pyrochlore iridate Pr2Ir2O7, we identify a nontrivial state with a single point Fermi node protected by cubic and time-reversal symmetries, using a combination of angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and first principles calculations. Owing to its quadratic dispersion, the unique coincidence of four degenerate states at the Fermi energy, and strong Coulomb interactions, non-Fermi liquid behavior is predicted, for which we observe some evidence. Our discovery implies that Pr2Ir2O7 is a parent state that can be manipulated to produce other strongly correlated topological phases, such as topological Mott insulator, Weyl semi-metal, and quantum spin and anomalous Hall states.
The search for novel topological phases of matter in quantum magnets has emerged as a frontier of condensed matter physics. Here we use state-of-the-art angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) to investigate single crystals of Co$_3$Sn$_2$S$_2$ in its ferromagnetic phase. We report for the first time signatures of a topological Weyl loop. From fundamental symmetry considerations, this magnetic Weyl loop is expected to be gapless if spin-orbit coupling (SOC) is strictly zero but gapped, with possible Weyl points, under finite SOC. We point out that high-resolution ARPES results to date cannot unambiguously resolve the SOC gap anywhere along the Weyl loop, leaving open the possibility that Co$_3$Sn$_2$S$_2$ hosts zero Weyl points or some non-zero number of Weyl points. On the surface of our samples, we further observe a possible Fermi arc, but we are unable to clearly verify its topological nature using the established counting criteria. As a result, we argue that from the point of view of photoemission spectroscopy the presence of Weyl points and Fermi arcs in Co$_3$Sn$_2$S$_2$ remains ambiguous. Our results have implications for ongoing investigations of Co$_3$Sn$_2$S$_2$ and other topological magnets.