No Arabic abstract
Topological materials have drawn increasing attention owing to their rich quantum properties. A notable highlight is the observation of a large intrinsic anomalous Hall effect (AHE) in Weyl and nodal-line semimetals. However, how the electronic topology of the carriers contributes to the transport and whether it can be externally tuned remains elusive. In this study, we demonstrate a magnetic-field-induced switching of band topology in $alpha$-EuP$_3$, a magnetic semimetal with a layered crystal structure derived from black phosphorus. Such topology switching is shown to be accompanied by a crossover from paramagnetic to ferromagnetic, manifesting as a giant AHE in the magnetoresistance when the magnetic field is perpendicular to the crystalline mirror plane. Electronic structure calculations further indicate that, depending on the direction of the magnetic field, two distinct topological phases, Weyl semimetal and topological nodal-line semimetal, are stabilized via the exchange coupling between Eu-4$f$ moments and conducting carriers. Our findings provide a realistic solution for external control and manipulation of band topology, enriching the functional aspects of topological materials and furthering the possibility of practical applications for topological electronics.
The $4d$ and $5d$ transition metal oxides have become important members of the emerging quantum materials family due to competition between onsite Coulomb repulsion ($U$) and spin-orbit coupling (SOC). Specifically, the systems with $d^5$ electronic configuration in an octahedral environment are found to be capable of posessing invariant semimetallic state and perturbations can lead to diverse magnetic phases. In this work, by formulating a multi-band Hubbard model and performing SOC tunable DFT+$U$ calculations on a prototype SrIrO$_3$ and extending the analysis to other iso-structural and isovalent compounds, we present eight possible electronic and magnetic configurations in the $U$-SOC phase diagram that can be observed in the family of low-spin $d^5$ perovskites. They include the protected Dirac semimetal state, metal and insulator regimes, collinear and noncollinear spin ordering. The latter is explained through connecting hopping interactions to the rotation and tilting of the octahedra as observed in GdFeO$_3$. Presence of several soft phase boundaries makes the family of $d^5$ perovskites an ideal platform to study electronic and magnetic phase transitions under external stimuli.
We study the quantum critical phenomena emerging at the transition from triple-Weyl semimetal to band insulator, which is a topological phase transition described by the change of topological invariant. The critical point realizes a new type of semimetal state in which the fermion dispersion is cubic along two directions and quadratic along the third. Our renormalization group analysis reveals that, the Coulomb interaction is marginal at low energies and even arbitrarily weak Coulomb interaction suffices to induce an infrared fixed point. We compute a number of observable quantities, and show that they all exhibit non-Fermi liquid behaviors at the fixed point. When the interplay between the Coulomb and short-range four-fermion interactions is considered, the system becomes unstable below a finite energy scale. The system undergoes a first-order topological transition when the fermion flavor $N$ is small, and enters into a nematic phase if $N$ is large enough. Non-Fermi liquid behaviors are hidden by the instability at low temperatures, but can still be observed at higher temperatures. Experimental detection of the predicted phenomena is discussed.
We study a layered three-dimensional heterostructure in which two types of Kondo insulators are stacked alternatingly. One of them is the topological Kondo insulator SmB 6 , the other one an isostructural Kondo insulator AB 6 , where A is a rare-earth element, e.g., Eu, Yb, or Ce. We find that if the latter orders ferromagnetically, the heterostructure generically becomes a magnetic Weyl Kondo semimetal, while antiferromagnetic order can yield a magnetic Dirac Kondo semimetal. We detail both scenarios with general symmetry considerations as well as concrete tight-binding calcu-lations and show that type-I as well as type-II magnetic Weyl/Dirac Kondo semimetal phases are possible in these heterostructures. Our results demonstrate that Kondo insulator heterostructures are a versatile platform for design of strongly correlated topological semimetals.
Unconventional surface states protected by non-trivial bulk orders are sources of various exotic quantum transport in topological materials. One prominent example is the unique magnetic orbit, so-called Weyl orbit, in topological semimetals where two spatially separated surface Fermi-arcs are interconnected across the bulk. The recent observation of quantum Hall states in Dirac semimetal Cd3As2 bulks have drawn attention to the novel quantization phenomena possibly evolving from the Weyl orbit. Here we report surface quantum oscillation and its evolution into quantum Hall states in Cd3As2 thin film samples, where bulk dimensionality, Fermi energy, and band topology are systematically controlled. We reveal essential involvement of bulk states in the quantized surface transport and the resultant quantum Hall degeneracy depending on the bulk occupation. Our demonstration of surface transport controlled in film samples also paves a way for engineering Fermi-arc-mediated transport in topological semimetals.
A topological insulator doped with random magnetic impurities is studied. The system is modelled by the Kane-Mele model with a random spin exchange between conduction electrons and magnetic dopants. The dynamical mean field theory for disordered systems is used to investigate the electron dynamics. The magnetic long-range order and the topological invariant are calculated within the mean field theory. They reveal a rich phase diagram, where different magnetic long-range orders such as antiferromagnetic or ferromagnetic one can exist in the metallic or insulating phases, depending on electron and magnetic impurity fillings. It is found that insulator only occurs at electron half filling, quarter filling and when electron filling is equal to magnetic impurity filling. However, non-trivial topology is observed only in half-filling antiferromagnetic insulator and quarter-filling ferromagnetic insulator. At electron half filling, the spin Hall conductance is quantized and it is robust against magnetic doping, while at electron quarter filling, magnetic dopants drive the ferromagnetic topological insulator to ferromagnetic metal. The quantum anomalous Hall effect is observed only at electron quarter filling and dense magnetic doping.