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Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    From Colossal to Zero: Controlling the Anomalous Hall Effect in Magnetic Heusler Compounds via Berry Curvature Design
    (College Park, MD : American Physical Society, 2018) Manna, K.; Muechler, L.; Kao, T.-H.; Stinshoff, R.; Zhang, Y.; Gooth, J.; Kumar, N.; Kreiner, G.; Koepernik, K.; Car, R.; Kübler, J.; Fecher, G.H.; Shekhar, C.; Sun, Y.; Felser, C.
    Since the discovery of the anomalous Hall effect (AHE), the anomalous Hall conductivity (AHC) has been thought to be zero when there is no net magnetization. However, the recently found relation between the intrinsic AHE and the Berry curvature predicts other possibilities, such as a large AHC in noncolinear antiferromagnets with no net magnetization but net Berry curvature. Vice versa, the AHE in principle could be tuned to zero, irrespective of a finite magnetization. Here, we experimentally investigate this possibility and demonstrate that the symmetry elements of Heusler magnets can be changed such that the Berry curvature and all the associated properties are switched while leaving the magnetization unaffected. This enables us to tune the AHC from 0 Ω-1 cm-1 up to 1600 Ω-1 cm-1 with an exceptionally high anomalous Hall angle up to 12%, while keeping the magnetization the same. Our study shows that the AHC can be controlled by selectively changing the Berry curvature distribution, independent of the magnetization.
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    Observation of giant spin-split Fermi-arc with maximal Chern number in the chiral topological semimetal PtGa
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2020) Yao, M.; Manna, K.; Yang, Q.; Fedorov, A.; Voroshnin, V.; Valentin Schwarze, B.; Hornung, J.; Chattopadhyay, S.; Sun, Z.; Guin, S.N.; Wosnitza, J.; Borrmann, H.; Shekhar, C.; Kumar, N.; Fink, J.; Sun, Y.; Felser, C.
    Non-symmorphic chiral topological crystals host exotic multifold fermions, and their associated Fermi arcs helically wrap around and expand throughout the Brillouin zone between the high-symmetry center and surface-corner momenta. However, Fermi-arc splitting and realization of the theoretically proposed maximal Chern number rely heavily on the spin-orbit coupling (SOC) strength. In the present work, we investigate the topological states of a new chiral crystal, PtGa, which has the strongest SOC among all chiral crystals reported to date. With a comprehensive investigation using high-resolution angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, quantum-oscillation measurements, and state-of-the-art ab initio calculations, we report a giant SOC-induced splitting of both Fermi arcs and bulk states. Consequently, this study experimentally confirms the realization of a maximal Chern number equal to ±4 in multifold fermionic systems, thereby providing a platform to observe large-quantized photogalvanic currents in optical experiments.
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    Spin Hall effect emerging from a noncollinear magnetic lattice without spin-orbit coupling
    (Bristol : Institute of Physics Publishing, 2018) Zhang, Y.; Železný, J.; Sun, Y.; Van Den Brink, J.; Yan, B.
    The spin Hall effect (SHE), which converts a charge current into a transverse spin current, has long been believed to be a phenomenon induced by spin-orbit coupling. Here, we identify an alternative mechanism to realize the intrinsic SHE through a noncollinear magnetic structure that breaks the spin rotation symmetry. No spin-orbit coupling is needed even when the scalar spin chirality vanishes, different from the case of the topological Hall effect and topological SHE reported previously. In known noncollinear antiferromagnetic compounds Mn3X (X = Ga, Ge, and Sn), for example, we indeed obtain large spin Hall conductivities based on ab initio calculations.
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    Comprehensive scan for nonmagnetic Weyl semimetals with nonlinear optical response
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2020) Xu, Q.; Zhang, Y.; Koepernik, K.; Shi, W.; van den Brink, J.; Felser, C.; Sun, Y.
    First-principles calculations have recently been used to develop comprehensive databases of nonmagnetic topological materials that are protected by time-reversal or crystalline symmetry. However, owing to the low symmetry requirement of Weyl points, a symmetry-based approach to identifying topological states cannot be applied to Weyl semimetals (WSMs). To date, WSMs with Weyl points in arbitrary positions are absent from the well-known databases. In this work, we develop an efficient algorithm to search for Weyl points automatically and establish a database of nonmagnetic WSMs with Weyl points near the Fermi level based on the experimental non-centrosymmetric crystal structures in the Inorganic Crystal Structure Database (ICSD). In total, 46 Weyl semimetals were discovered to have nearly clean Fermi surfaces and Weyl points within 300 meV of the Fermi level. Nine of them are chiral structures which may exhibit the quantized circular photogalvanic effect. In addition, the nonlinear optical response is studied and the giant shift current is explored. Besides nonmagnetic WSMs, our powerful tools can also be used in the discovery of magnetic topological materials.
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    Thickness dependence of the anomalous Nernst effect and the Mott relation of Weyl semimetal Co2MnGa thin films
    (College Park, MD : American Physical Society, 2020) Park, G.-H.; Reichlova, H.; Schlitz, R.; Lammel, M.; Markou, A.; Swekis, P.; Ritzinger, P.; Kriegner, D.; Noky, J.; Gayles, J.; Sun, Y.; Felser, C.; Nielsch, K.; Goennenwein, S.T.B.; Thomas, A.
    We report a robust anomalous Nernst effect in Co2MnGa thin films in the thickness regime between 20 and 50 nm. The anomalous Nernst coefficient varied in the range of -2.0 to -3.0 μV/K at 300 K. We demonstrate that the anomalous Hall and Nernst coefficients exhibit similar behavior and fulfill the Mott relation. We simultaneously measure all four transport coefficients of the longitudinal resistivity, transversal resistivity, Seebeck coefficient, and anomalous Nernst coefficient. We connect the values of the measured and calculated Nernst conductivity by using the remaining three magnetothermal transport coefficients, where the Mott relation is still valid. The intrinsic Berry curvature dominates the transport due to the relation between the longitudinal and transversal transport. Therefore, we conclude that the Mott relationship is applicable to describe the magnetothermoelectric transport in Weyl semimetal Co2MnGa as a function of film thickness.