Journal Article

Quantum transport evidence of Weyl fermions in an epitaxial ferromagnetic oxide

Yamamoto, Hideki, Sawada, Hiroshi, Otsuka, Takuma, Tanaka, Masaaki, Wakabayashi, Yuki K., Takiguchi, Kosuke, Nikolaev, Sergey A., Krockenberger, Yoshiharu, Das, Hena, Taniyasu, Yoshitaka, Irie, Hiroshi

2020

Overview

Magnetic Weyl semimetals have novel transport phenomena related to pairs of Weyl nodes in the band structure. Although the existence of Weyl fermions is expected in various oxides, the evidence of Weyl fermions in oxide materials remains elusive. Here we show direct quantum transport evidence of Weyl fermions in an epitaxial 4 d ferromagnetic oxide SrRuO 3 . We employ machine-learning-assisted molecular beam epitaxy to synthesize SrRuO 3 films whose quality is sufficiently high to probe their intrinsic transport properties. Experimental observation of the five transport signatures of Weyl fermions—the linear positive magnetoresistance, chiral-anomaly-induced negative magnetoresistance, π phase shift in a quantum oscillation, light cyclotron mass, and high quantum mobility of about 10,000 cm 2 V −1 s −1 —combined with first-principles electronic structure calculations establishes SrRuO 3 as a magnetic Weyl semimetal. We also clarify the disorder dependence of the transport of the Weyl fermions, which gives a clear guideline for accessing the topologically nontrivial transport phenomena. Despite various predictions, the evidence of Weyl fermions in oxide materials remains elusive. Here, the authors show evidence of Weyl fermions in quantum transport measurements in an epitaxial ferromagnetic oxide SrRuO 3 .

• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group UK,Nature Portfolio
• Subject: 147/137 / 639/301/119/995 / 639/301/119/997 / 639/766/119/2792/4128 / Humanities and Social Sciences / multidisciplinary / Science / Science (multidisciplinary)