CaltechAUTHORS
Published November 20, 2020 | Version Supplemental Material + Published
Journal Article Open

Radial Spin Texture of the Weyl Fermions in Chiral Tellurium

Creators

  • 1. ROR icon École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
  • 2. ROR icon University of Zurich
  • 3. ROR icon CY Cergy Paris University
  • 4. ROR icon University of Paris-Saclay
  • 5. ROR icon Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
  • 6. ROR icon University of Würzburg
  • 7. ROR icon Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste
  • 8. ROR icon California Institute of Technology
  • 9. ROR icon University of Pennsylvania

Abstract

Trigonal tellurium, a small-gap semiconductor with pronounced magneto-electric and magneto-optical responses, is among the simplest realizations of a chiral crystal. We have studied by spin- and angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy its unconventional electronic structure and unique spin texture. We identify Kramers–Weyl, composite, and accordionlike Weyl fermions, so far only predicted by theory, and show that the spin polarization is parallel to the wave vector along the lines in k space connecting high-symmetry points. Our results clarify the symmetries that enforce such spin texture in a chiral crystal, thus bringing new insight in the formation of a spin vectorial field more complex than the previously proposed hedgehog configuration. Our findings thus pave the way to a classification scheme for these exotic spin textures and their search in chiral crystals.

Additional Information

© 2020 Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Received 22 July 2020; revised 15 September 2020; accepted 2 October 2020; published 19 November 2020. We acknowledge financial support by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), in particular L. T. acknowledges support under Grant No. 200020_188648, M. F. under Grant No. P2ELP2_181877, and S. M. under Grant No. P300P2-171221. D. G. M., S. S. T., and O. V. Y. acknowledge the support by the NCCR. S. S. T. acknowledges support from the European Union Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program (ERC-StG-Neupert-757867-PARATOP) and Swiss National Science Foundation (Grant No. PP00P2_176877). M. P., S. P., and M. C. acknowledge the support by the ERC Advanced Grant No. 695197 (DYNAMOX)) and the Swiss National Science Foundation NCCR:MUST Grant. We gratefully acknowledge support from the Department of Energy, Office of Science under Grant No. DE-FG02-07ER46405. J. W. acknowledges a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship under Grant No. 1144469. All first-principles calculations were performed at the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) under Projects No. s832 and No. s1008. We acknowledge Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste for providing access to its synchrotron radiation facilities. This work has been partly performed in the framework of the nanoscience foundry and fine analysis (NFFA-MIUR Italy Progetti Internazionali) facility. This research used resources of the Advanced Light Source, which is a DOE Office of Science User Facility, under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231.

Attached Files

Published - PhysRevLett.125.216402.pdf

Supplemental Material - Gatti_Te_SuppMat_Submission.pdf

Files

Gatti_Te_SuppMat_Submission.pdf

Files (28.4 MB)

Name Size Download all
md5:b0e66167c1fbab0573570d8f45d9ba79
26.8 MB Preview Download
md5:fe2449e81ecd3d53e6c36b45f6bccb7d
1.6 MB Preview Download

Additional details

Identifiers

Eprint ID
106777
Resolver ID
CaltechAUTHORS:20201123-084319706

Funding

Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)
200020_188648
Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)
P2ELP2_181877
Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)
P300P2-171221
European Research Council (ERC)
757867
Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)
PP00P2_176877
European Research Council (ERC)
695197
Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)
MUST
Department of Energy (DOE)
DE-FG02-07ER46405
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
DGE-1144469
Swiss National Supercomputing Centre
s832
Swiss National Supercomputing Centre
s1008
Department of Energy (DOE)
DE-AC02-05CH11231

Dates

Created
2020-11-23
Created from EPrint's datestamp field
Updated
2021-11-16
Created from EPrint's last_modified field