Chiral topological semimetal with multifold band crossings and long Fermi arcs

Schroter NBM, Pei D, Vergniory MG, Sun Y, Manna K, De Juan F, Krieger JA, Suess V, Schmidt M, Dudin P, Bradlyn B, Kim TK, Schmitt T, Cacho C, Felser C, Strocov VN, Chen Y (2019)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2019

Journal

Nature Physics Nature Research

Book Volume: 15

Pages Range: 759-765

Journal Issue: 8

DOI: 10.1038/s41567-019-0511-y

Abstract

Topological semimetals in crystals with a chiral structure (which possess a handedness due to a lack of mirror and inversion symmetries) are expected to display numerous exotic physical phenomena, including fermionic excitations with large topological charge1, long Fermi arc surface states2,3, unusual magnetotransport4 and lattice dynamics5, as well as a quantized response to circularly polarized light6. So far, all experimentally confirmed topological semimetals exist in crystals that contain mirror operations, meaning that these properties do not appear. Here, we show that AlPt is a structurally chiral topological semimetal that hosts new four-fold and six-fold fermions, which can be viewed as a higher spin generalization of Weyl fermions without equivalence in elementary particle physics. These multifold fermions are located at high symmetry points and have Chern numbers larger than those in Weyl semimetals, thus resulting in multiple Fermi arcs that span the full diagonal of the surface Brillouin zone. By imaging these long Fermi arcs, we experimentally determine the magnitude and sign of their Chern number, allowing us to relate their dispersion to the handedness of their host crystal.

Involved external institutions

Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) CH Switzerland (CH) University of Oxford GB United Kingdom (GB) Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC) ES Spain (ES) Max-Planck-Institut für Chemische Physik fester Stoffe (MPI CPfS) / Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids DE Germany (DE) Diamond Light Source GB United Kingdom (GB) University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign US United States (USA) (US)

How to cite

APA:

Schroter, N.B.M., Pei, D., Vergniory, M.G., Sun, Y., Manna, K., De Juan, F.,... Chen, Y. (2019). Chiral topological semimetal with multifold band crossings and long Fermi arcs. Nature Physics, 15(8), 759-765. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-019-0511-y

MLA:

Schroter, Niels B. M., et al. "Chiral topological semimetal with multifold band crossings and long Fermi arcs." Nature Physics 15.8 (2019): 759-765.

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