Berry curvature unravelled by the anomalous Nernst effect in <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:msub><mml:mi>Mn</mml:mi><mml:mn>3</mml:mn></mml:msub><mml:mi mathvariant="normal">Ge</mml:mi></mml:math>

Christoph Wuttke, Federico Caglieris, Steffen Sykora, Francesco Scaravaggi, A. U. B. Wolter, Kaustuv Manna, Vicky Süß, Chandra Shekhar, Claudia Felser, B. Büchner

Abstract

The discovery of topological quantum materials represents a striking innovation in modern condensed matter physics with remarkable fundamental and technological implications. Their classification has been recently extended to topological Weyl semimetals, i.e., solid state systems which exhibit the elusive Weyl fermions as low-energy excitations. Here we show that the Nernst effect can be exploited as a sensitive probe for determining key parameters of the Weyl physics, applying it to the non-collinear antiferromagnet Mn$_3$Ge. This compound exhibits anomalous thermoelectric transport due to enhanced Berry curvature from Weyl points located extremely close to the Fermi level. We establish from our data a direct measure of the Berry curvature at the Fermi level and, using a minimal model of a Weyl semimetal, extract for the first time the Weyl point energy and their distance in momentum-space.

Locations

• Physical review. B./Physical review. B - View
• arXiv (Cornell University) - View - PDF
• Qucosa (Saxon State and University Library Dresden) - View - PDF
• DataCite API - View