Signatures of Fermi Arcs in the Quasiparticle Interferences of the Weyl Semimetals TaAs and NbP

Guoqing Chang, Su-Yang Xu, Hao Zheng, Chi-Cheng Lee, Shin-Ming Huang, Ilya Belopolski, Daniel S. Sanchez, Guang Bian, Nasser Alidoust, Tay-Rong Chang, Chuang-Han Hsu, Horng-Tay Jeng, Arun Bansil, Hsin Lin, and M. Zahid Hasan
Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 066601 – Published 10 February 2016
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Abstract

The recent discovery of the first Weyl semimetal in TaAs provides the first observation of a Weyl fermion in nature. Such a topological semimetal features a novel type of anomalous surface state, the Fermi arc, which connects a pair of Weyl nodes through the boundary of the crystal. Here, we present theoretical calculations of the quasiparticle interference (QPI) patterns that arise from the surface states including the topological Fermi arcs in the Weyl semimetals TaAs and NbP. Most importantly, we discover that the QPI exhibits termination points that are fingerprints of the Weyl nodes in the interference pattern. Our results, for the first time, propose a universal interference signature of the topological Fermi arcs in TaAs, which is fundamental for scanning tunneling microscope (STM) measurements on this prototypical Weyl semimetal compound. More generally, our work provides critical guideline and methodology for STM studies on new Weyl semimetals. Further, the scattering channels revealed by our QPIs are broadly relevant to surface transport and device applications based on Weyl semimetals.

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  • Received 10 November 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.066601

© 2016 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Guoqing Chang1,2, Su-Yang Xu3,*, Hao Zheng3, Chi-Cheng Lee1,2, Shin-Ming Huang1,2, Ilya Belopolski3, Daniel S. Sanchez3, Guang Bian3, Nasser Alidoust3, Tay-Rong Chang4, Chuang-Han Hsu1,2, Horng-Tay Jeng4,5, Arun Bansil6, Hsin Lin1,2,†, and M. Zahid Hasan3,‡

  • 1Centre for Advanced 2D Materials and Graphene Research Centre, National University of Singapore, 6 Science Drive 2, Singapore 117546
  • 2Department of Physics, National University of Singapore, 2 Science Drive 3, Singapore 117542
  • 3Laboratory for Topological Quantum Matter and Spectroscopy (B7), Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
  • 4Department of Physics, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu 30013, Taiwan
  • 5Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, Taipei 11529, Taiwan
  • 6Department of Physics, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA

  • *Corresponding author. suyangxu@princeton.edu
  • Corresponding author. nilnish@gmail.com
  • Corresponding author. mzhasan@princeton.edu

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Issue

Vol. 116, Iss. 6 — 12 February 2016

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