Evidence for topological type-II Weyl semimetal WTe2

Peng Li; Yan Wen; Xin He; Qiang Zhang; Chuan Xia; Zhi Ming Yu; Shengyuan A. Yang; Zhiyong Zhu; Husam N. Alshareef; Xi Xiang Zhang

doi:10.1038/s41467-017-02237-1

Evidence for topological type-II Weyl semimetal WTe₂

Peng Li, Yan Wen, Xin He, Qiang Zhang, Chuan Xia, Zhi Ming Yu, Shengyuan A. Yang, Zhiyong Zhu, Husam N. Alshareef, Xi Xiang Zhang^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Physical Sciences and Engineering

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

237 Scopus citations

Abstract

Recently, a type-II Weyl fermion was theoretically predicted to appear at the contact of electron and hole Fermi surface pockets. A distinguishing feature of the surfaces of type-II Weyl semimetals is the existence of topological surface states, so-called Fermi arcs. Although WTe₂ was the first material suggested as a type-II Weyl semimetal, the direct observation of its tilting Weyl cone and Fermi arc has not yet been successful. Here, we show strong evidence that WTe₂ is a type-II Weyl semimetal by observing two unique transport properties simultaneously in one WTe₂ nanoribbon. The negative magnetoresistance induced by a chiral anomaly is quite anisotropic in WTe₂ nanoribbons, which is present in b-axis ribbon, but is absent in a-axis ribbon. An extra-quantum oscillation, arising from a Weyl orbit formed by the Fermi arc and bulk Landau levels, displays a two dimensional feature and decays as the thickness increases in WTe₂ nanoribbon.

Original language	English (US)
Article number	2150
Journal	Nature Communications
Volume	8
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-02237-1
State	Published - Dec 1 2017

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We’d like to thank Prof. Xi Dai, institute of Physics (Beijing), for his critical reading and useful discussion in the revision of the manuscript. We thank Y. Yang for the assistance on polarized Raman, and Z. P. Hou for the useful discussion. The research reported in this publication was supported by funding from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). P.L. acknowledges the financial support of CRF-2015-SENSORS-2709 (KAUST).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 The Author(s).

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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Physics and Astronomy(all)
Chemistry(all)
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology(all)

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10.1038/s41467-017-02237-1

Cite this

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title = "Evidence for topological type-II Weyl semimetal WTe2 ",

abstract = "Recently, a type-II Weyl fermion was theoretically predicted to appear at the contact of electron and hole Fermi surface pockets. A distinguishing feature of the surfaces of type-II Weyl semimetals is the existence of topological surface states, so-called Fermi arcs. Although WTe2 was the first material suggested as a type-II Weyl semimetal, the direct observation of its tilting Weyl cone and Fermi arc has not yet been successful. Here, we show strong evidence that WTe2 is a type-II Weyl semimetal by observing two unique transport properties simultaneously in one WTe2 nanoribbon. The negative magnetoresistance induced by a chiral anomaly is quite anisotropic in WTe2 nanoribbons, which is present in b-axis ribbon, but is absent in a-axis ribbon. An extra-quantum oscillation, arising from a Weyl orbit formed by the Fermi arc and bulk Landau levels, displays a two dimensional feature and decays as the thickness increases in WTe2 nanoribbon.",

author = "Peng Li and Yan Wen and Xin He and Qiang Zhang and Chuan Xia and Yu, {Zhi Ming} and Yang, {Shengyuan A.} and Zhiyong Zhu and Alshareef, {Husam N.} and Zhang, {Xi Xiang}",

note = "Funding Information: We{\textquoteright}d like to thank Prof. Xi Dai, institute of Physics (Beijing), for his critical reading and useful discussion in the revision of the manuscript. We thank Y. Yang for the assistance on polarized Raman, and Z. P. Hou for the useful discussion. The research reported in this publication was supported by funding from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). P.L. acknowledges the financial support of CRF-2015-SENSORS-2709 (KAUST). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2017 The Author(s).",

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AU - Wen, Yan

AU - He, Xin

AU - Zhang, Qiang

AU - Xia, Chuan

AU - Yu, Zhi Ming

AU - Yang, Shengyuan A.

AU - Zhu, Zhiyong

AU - Alshareef, Husam N.

AU - Zhang, Xi Xiang

N1 - Funding Information: We’d like to thank Prof. Xi Dai, institute of Physics (Beijing), for his critical reading and useful discussion in the revision of the manuscript. We thank Y. Yang for the assistance on polarized Raman, and Z. P. Hou for the useful discussion. The research reported in this publication was supported by funding from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). P.L. acknowledges the financial support of CRF-2015-SENSORS-2709 (KAUST). Publisher Copyright: © 2017 The Author(s).

PY - 2017/12/1

Y1 - 2017/12/1

N2 - Recently, a type-II Weyl fermion was theoretically predicted to appear at the contact of electron and hole Fermi surface pockets. A distinguishing feature of the surfaces of type-II Weyl semimetals is the existence of topological surface states, so-called Fermi arcs. Although WTe2 was the first material suggested as a type-II Weyl semimetal, the direct observation of its tilting Weyl cone and Fermi arc has not yet been successful. Here, we show strong evidence that WTe2 is a type-II Weyl semimetal by observing two unique transport properties simultaneously in one WTe2 nanoribbon. The negative magnetoresistance induced by a chiral anomaly is quite anisotropic in WTe2 nanoribbons, which is present in b-axis ribbon, but is absent in a-axis ribbon. An extra-quantum oscillation, arising from a Weyl orbit formed by the Fermi arc and bulk Landau levels, displays a two dimensional feature and decays as the thickness increases in WTe2 nanoribbon.

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