No Arabic abstract
The ferromagnetic phase of the cubic antiperovskite Mn$_3$ZnC is suggested from first-principles calculation to be a nodal line Weyl semimetal. Features in the electronic structure that are the hallmark of a nodal line Weyl state, a large density of linear band crossings near the Fermi level, can also be interpreted as signatures of a structural and/or magnetic instability. Indeed, it is known that Mn$_3$ZnC undergoes transitions upon cooling from a paramagnetic to a cubic ferromagnetic state under ambient conditions and then further into a non-collinear ferrimagnetic tetragonal phase at a temperature between 250$,$K and 200$,$K. The existence of Weyl nodes and their destruction via structural and magnetic ordering is likely to be relevant to a range of magnetostructurally coupled materials.
The tetragonal ferrimagnetic Mn$_3$Ga exhibits a wide range of intriguing magnetic properties. Here, we report the emergence of topologically nontrivial nodal lines in the absence of spin orbit coupling (SOC) which are protected by both mirror and $C_{4z}$ rotational symmetries. In the presence of SOC we demonstrate that the doubly degenerate nontrivial crossing points evolve into $C_{4z}$-protected Weyl nodes with chiral charge of $pm$2. Furthermore, we have considered the experimentally reported noncollinear ferrimagnetic structure, where the magnetic moment of the Mn$_I$ atom (on the Mn-Ga plane) is tilted by an angle $theta$ with respect to the crystallographic $c$ axis. The evolution of the Weyl nodes with $theta$ reveals that the double Weyl nodes split into a pair of charge-1 Weyl nodes whose separation can be tuned by the magnetic orientation in the noncollinear ferrimagnetic structure.
Noncollinear antiferromagnets have promising potential to replace ferromagnets in the field of spintronics as high-density devices with ultrafast operation. To take full advantage of noncollinear antiferromagnets in spintronics applications, it is important to achieve efficient manipulation of noncollinear antiferromagnetic spin. Here, using the anomalous Hall effect as an electrical signal of the triangular magnetic configuration, spin-orbit torque switching with no external magnetic field is demonstrated in noncollinear antiferromagnetic antiperovskite manganese nitride Mn$_3$GaN at room temperature. The pulse-width dependence and subsequent relaxation of Hall signal behavior indicate that the spin-orbit torque plays a more important role than the thermal contribution due to pulse injection. In addition, multistate memristive switching with respect to pulse current density was observed. The findings advance the effective control of noncollinear antiferromagnetic spin, facilitating the use of such materials in antiferromagnetic spintronics and neuromorphic computing applications.
In 1929, H. Weyl proposed that the massless solution of Dirac equation represents a pair of new type particles, the so-called Weyl fermions [1]. However the existence of them in particle physics remains elusive for more than eight decades. Recently, significant advances in both topological insulators and topological semimetals have provided an alternative way to realize Weyl fermions in condensed matter as an emergent phenomenon: when two non-degenerate bands in the three-dimensional momentum space cross in the vicinity of Fermi energy (called as Weyl nodes), the low energy excitation behaves exactly the same as Weyl fermions. Here, by performing soft x-ray angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy measurements which mainly probe bulk band structure, we directly observe the long-sought-after Weyl nodes for the first time in TaAs, whose projected locations on the (001) surface match well to the Fermi arcs, providing undisputable experimental evidence of existence of Weyl fermion quasiparticles in TaAs.
The Weyl antiferromagnet Mn$_3$Sn has recently attracted significant attention as it exhibits various useful functions such as large anomalous Hall effect that are normally absent in antiferromagnets. Here we report the thin film fabrication of the single phase of Mn$_3$Sn and the observation of the large anomalous Hall effect at room temperature despite its vanishingly small magnetization. Our work on the high-quality thin film growth of the Weyl antiferromagnet paves the path for developing the antiferromagnetic spintronics.
A Weyl semimetal possesses spin-polarized band-crossings, called Weyl nodes, connected by topological surface arcs. The low-energy excitations near the crossing points behave the same as massless Weyl fermions, leading to exotic properties like chiral anomaly. To have the transport properties dominated by Weyl fermions, Weyl nodes need to locate nearly at the chemical potential and enclosed by pairs of individual Fermi surfaces with nonzero Fermi Chern numbers. Combining angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and first-principles calculation, here we show that TaP is a Weyl semimetal with only single type of Weyl fermions, topologically distinguished from TaAs where two types of Weyl fermions contribute to the low-energy physical properties. The simple Weyl fermions in TaP are not only of fundamental interests but also of great potential for future applications. Fermi arcs on the Ta-terminated surface are observed, which appear in a different pattern from that on the As-termination in TaAs and NbAs.