Abstract

Weyl fermions(1-3) have been observed as three-dimensional, gapless topological excitations in weakly correlated, inversion-symmetry- breaking semimetals(4,5). However, their realization in spontaneously time-reversal-symmetry-breaking phases of strongly correlated materials has so far remained hypothetical(2,6,7). Here, we report experimental evidence for magnetic Weyl fermions in Mn3Sn, a non-collinear antiferromagnet that exhibits a large anomalous Hall effect, even at room temperature(8). Detailed comparison between angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) measurements and density functional theory (DFT) calculations reveals significant bandwidth renormalization and damping effects due to the strong correlation among Mn 3d electrons. Magnetotransport measurements provide strong evidence for the chiral anomaly of Weyl fermions-namely, the emergence of positive magnetoconductance only in the presence of parallel electric and magnetic fields. Since weak magnetic fields (approximately 10 mT) are adequate to control the distribution of Weyl points and the large fictitious fields (equivalent to approximately a few hundred T) produced by them in momentum space, our discovery lays the foundation for a new field of science and technology involving the magnetic Weyl excitations of strongly correlated electron systems such as Mn3Sn.

Publication Details
Publication Type
Journal Article
Year of Publication
2017
Volume
16
Number of Pages
1090-+
DOI
10.1038/nmat4987
Journal
Nature Materials
Contributors
Groups