Optical conductivity of the Weyl semimetal NbP

Neubauer D, Yaresko A, Li W, Loehle A, Huebner R, Schilling MB, Shekhar C, Felser C, Dressel M, Pronin A (2018)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2018

Journal

Physical Review B American Physical Society

Book Volume: 98

Article Number: 195203

Journal Issue: 19

DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.98.195203

Abstract

The optical properties of (001)-oriented NbP single crystals have been studied in a wide spectral range from 6 meV to 3 eV from room temperature down to 10 K. The itinerant carriers lead to a Drude-like contribution to the optical response; we can further identify two pronounced phonon modes and interband transitions starting already at rather low frequencies. By comparing our experimental findings to the calculated interband optical conductivity, we can assign the features observed in the measured conductivity to certain interband transitions. In particular, we find that transitions between the electronic bands spilt by spin-orbit coupling dominate the interband conductivity of NbP below 100 meV. At low temperatures, the momentum-relaxing scattering rate of itinerant carriers in one of the conduction channels is very small, leading to mesoscopic (hundreds of nanometers) characteristic length scales for momentum relaxation.

Involved external institutions

Universität Stuttgart DE Germany (DE) Max-Planck-Institut für Festkörperforschung DE Germany (DE) Max-Planck-Institut für Chemische Physik fester Stoffe (MPI CPfS) / Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids DE Germany (DE)

How to cite

APA:

Neubauer, D., Yaresko, A., Li, W., Loehle, A., Huebner, R., Schilling, M.B.,... Pronin, A. (2018). Optical conductivity of the Weyl semimetal NbP. Physical Review B, 98(19). https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.98.195203

MLA:

Neubauer, David, et al. "Optical conductivity of the Weyl semimetal NbP." Physical Review B 98.19 (2018).

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