No Arabic abstract
Energy transfer from electrons to phonons is an important consideration in any Weyl or Dirac semimetal based application. In this work, we analytically calculate the cooling power of acoustic phonons, i.e. the energy relaxation rate of electrons which are interacting with acoustic phonons, for Weyl and Dirac semimetals in a variety of different situations. For cold Weyl or Dirac semimetals with the Fermi energy at the nodal points, we find the electronic temperature, $T_e$, decays in time as a power law. In the heavily doped regime, $T_e$ decays linearly in time far away from equilibrium. In a heavily doped system with short-range disorder we predict the cooling power of acoustic phonons is drastically increased because of an enhanced energy transfer between electrons and phonons. When an external magnetic field is applied to an undoped system, the cooling power is linear in magnetic field strength and $T_e$ has square root decay in time, independent of magnetic field strength over a range of values.
Weyl and Dirac semimetals are three dimensional phases of matter with gapless electronic excitations that are protected by topology and symmetry. As three dimensional analogs of graphene, they have generated much recent interest. Deep connections exist with particle physics models of relativistic chiral fermions, and -- despite their gaplessness -- to solid-state topological and Chern insulators. Their characteristic electronic properties lead to protected surface states and novel responses to applied electric and magnetic fields. Here we review the theoretical foundations of these phases, their proposed realizations in solid state systems, recent experiments on candidate materials, as well as their relation to other states of matter.
The surface of a Weyl semimetal famously hosts an exotic topological metal that contains open Fermi arcs rather than closed Fermi surfaces. In this work, we show that the surface is also endowed with a feature normally associated with strongly interacting systems, namely, Luttinger arcs, defined as zeros of the electron Greens function. The Luttinger arcs connect surface projections of Weyl nodes of opposite chirality and form closed loops with the Fermi arcs when the Weyl nodes are undoped. Upon doping, the ends of the Fermi and Luttinger arcs separate and the intervening regions get filled by surface projections of bulk Fermi surfaces. For bilayered Weyl semimetals, we prove two remarkable implications: (i) the precise shape of the Luttinger arcs can be determined experimentally by removing a surface layer. We use this principle to sketch the Luttinger arcs for Co and Sn terminations in Co$_{3}$Sn$_{2}$S$_{2}$; (ii) the area enclosed by the Fermi and Luttinger arcs equals the surface particle density to zeroth order in the interlayer couplings. We argue that the approximate equivalence survives interactions that are weak enough to leave the system in the Weyl limit, and term this phenomenon weak Luttingers theorem.
We study the electronic contribution to the thermal conductivity and the thermopower of Weyl and Dirac semimetals using a semiclassical Boltzmann approach. We investigate the effect of various relaxation processes including disorder and interactions on the thermoelectric properties, and also consider doping away from the Weyl or Dirac point. We find that the thermal conductivity and thermopower have an interesting dependence on the chemical potential that is characteristic of the linear electronic dispersion, and that the electron-electron interactions modify the Lorenz number. For the interacting system, we also use the Kubo formalism to obtain the transport coefficients. We find exact agreement between the Kubo and Boltzmann approaches at high temperatures. We also consider the effect of electric and magnetic fields on the thermal conductivity in various orientations with respect to the temperature gradient. Notably, when the temperature gradient and magnetic field are parallel, we find a large contribution to the longitudinal thermal conductivity that is quadratic in the magnetic field strength, similar to the magnetic field dependence of the longitudinal electrical conductivity due to the presence of the chiral anomaly when no thermal gradient is present.
Within a Kubo formalism, we study dc transport and ac optical properties of 3D Dirac and Weyl semimetals. Emphasis is placed on the approach to charge neutrality and on the differences between Dirac and Weyl materials. At charge neutrality, the zero-temperature limit of the dc conductivity is not universal and also depends on the residual scattering model employed. However, the Lorenz number L retains its usual value L_0. With increasing temperature, the Wiedemann-Franz law is violated. At high temperatures, L exhibits a new plateau at a value dependent on the details of the scattering rate. Such details can also appear in the optical conductivity, both in the Drude response and interband background. In the clean limit, the interband background is linear in photon energy and always extrapolates to the origin. This background can be shifted to the right through the introduction of a massless gap. In this case, the extrapolation can cut the axis at a finite photon energy as is observed in some experiments. It is also of interest to differentiate between the two types of Weyl semimetals: those with broken time-reversal symmetry and those with broken spatial-inversion symmetry. We show that, while the former will follow the same behaviour as the 3D Dirac semimetals, for the zero magnetic field properties discussed here, the latter type will show a double step in the optical conductivity at finite doping and a single absorption edge at charge neutrality. The Drude conductivity is always finite in this case, even at charge neutrality.
Second harmonic generation (SHG) is a fundamental nonlinear optical phenomenon widely used both for experimental probes of materials and for application to optical devices. Even-order nonlinear optical responses including SHG generally require breaking of inversion symmetry, and thus have been utilized to study noncentrosymmetric materials. Here, we study theoretically the SHG in inversion-symmetric Dirac and Weyl semimetals under a DC current which breaks the inversion symmetry by creating a nonequilibrium steady state. Based on analytic and numerical calculations, we find that Dirac and Weyl semimetals exhibit strong SHG upon application of finite current. Our experimental estimation for a Dirac semimetal Cd$_3$As$_2$ and a magnetic Weyl semimetal Co$_3$Sn$_2$S$_2$ suggests that the induced susceptibility $chi^{(2)}$ for practical applied current densities can reach $10^5~mathrm{pm}cdotmathrm{V}^{-1}$ with mid-IR or far-IR light. This value is 10$^2$-10$^4$ times larger than those of typical nonlinear optical materials. We also discuss experimental approaches to observe the current-induced SHG and comment on current-induced SHG in other topological semimetals in connection with recent experiments.