The thermal Hall effect of spin excitations in a Kagome magnet

At low temperatures, the thermal conductivity of spin excitations in a magnetic insulator can exceed that of phonons. However, because they are charge neutral, the spin waves are not expected to display a thermal Hall effect in a magnetic field. Recently, this semiclassical notion has been upended in quantum magnets in which the spin texture has a finite chirality. In the Kagome lattice, the chiral term generates a Berry curvature. This results in a thermal Hall conductivity $\kappa_{xy}$ that is topological in origin. Here we report observation of a large $\kappa_{xy}$ in the Kagome magnet Cu(1-3, bdc) which orders magnetically at 1.8 K. The observed $\kappa_{xy}$ undergoes a remarkable sign-reversal with changes in temperature or magnetic field, associated with sign alternation of the Chern flux between magnon bands. We show that thermal Hall experiments probe incisively the effect of Berry curvature on heat transport.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

Anomalous Nernst Effect in Dirac Semimetal Cd3As2

Dirac and Weyl semimetals display a host of novel properties. In Cd$_3$As$_2$, the Dirac nodes lead to a protection mechanism that strongly suppresses backscattering in zero magnetic field, resulting in ultrahigh mobility ($\sim$ 10$^7$ cm$^2$ V$^{-1}$ s$^{-1}$). In applied magnetic field, an anomalous Nernst effect is predicted to arise from the Berry curvature associated with the Weyl nodes. We report observation of a large anomalous Nernst effect in Cd$_3$As$_2$. Both the anomalous Nernst signal and transport relaxation time $\tau_{tr}$ begin to increase rapidly at $\sim$ 50 K. This suggests a close relation between the protection mechanism and the anomalous Nernst effect. In a field, the quantum oscillations of bulk states display a beating effect, suggesting that the Dirac nodes split into Weyl states, allowing the Berry curvature to be observed as an anomalous Nernst effect.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figure

Evidence for massive bulk Dirac Fermions in Pb1−x_{1-x}Snx_xSe from Nernst and thermopower experiments

The lead chalcogenides (Pb,Sn)Te and (Pb,Sn)Se are the first examples of topological crystalline insulators (TCI) predicted \cite{Fu,Hsieh} (and confirmed \cite{Hasan,Story,Takahashi}) to display topological surface Dirac states (SDS) that are protected by mirror symmetry. A starting premise \cite{Hsieh} is that the SDS arise from bulk states describable as massive Dirac states \cite{Wallis,Svane}, but this assumption is untested. Here we show that the thermoelectric response of the bulk states display features specific to the Dirac spectrum. We show that, in the quantum limit, the lowest Landau Level (LL) is singly spin-degenerate, whereas higher levels are doubly degenerate. The abrupt change in spin degeneracy leads to a large step-decrease in the thermopower $S_{xx}$. In the lowest LL, $S_{xx}$ displays a striking linear increase vs. magnetic field. In addition, the Nernst signal undergoes an anomalous sign change when the bulk gap inverts at 180 K.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figure

Correlation of Crystal Quality and Extreme Magnetoresistance of WTe2_2

High quality single crystals of WTe$_2$ were grown using a Te flux followed by a cleaning step involving self-vapor transport. The method is reproducible and yields consistently higher quality single crystals than are typically obtained via halide assisted vapor transport methods. Magnetoresistance (MR)values at 9 Tesla and 2 Kelvin as high as 1.75 million \%, nearly an order of magnitude higher than previously reported for this material, were obtained on crystals with residual resistivity ratio (RRR) of approximately 1250. The MR follows a near B$^2$ law (B = 1.95(1)) and, assuming a semiclassical model, the average carrier mobility for the highest quality crystal was found to be ~167,000 cm$^2$/Vs at 2 K. A correlation of RRR, MR ratio and average carrier mobility ($\mu_{avg}$) is found with the cooling rate during the flux growth.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

Kagome lattice promotes chiral spin fluctuations

Magnetic materials with tilted electron spins often exhibit conducting behavior that cannot be explained from semiclassical theories without invoking fictitious (emergent) electromagnetic fields. Quantum-mechanical models explaining such phenomena are rooted in the concept of a moving quasiparticle's Berry phase, driven by a chiral (left- or right-handed) spin-habit. Dynamical and nearly random spin fluctuations, with a slight bent towards left- or right-handed chirality, represent a promising route to realizing Berry-phase phenomena at elevated temperatures, but little is known about the effect of crystal lattice geometry on the resulting macroscopic observables. Here, we report thermoelectric and electric transport experiments on two metals with large magnetic moments on a triangular and on a slightly distorted kagom\'e lattice, respectively. We show that the impact of chiral spin fluctuations is strongly enhanced for the kagom\'e lattice. Both these spiral magnets have similar magnetic phase diagrams including a periodic array of magnetic skyrmions. However, our modelling shows that the geometry of the kagom\'e lattice, with corner-sharing spin-trimers, helps to avoid cancellation of Berry-phase contributions; spin fluctuations are endowed with a net chiral habit already in the thermally disordered (paramagnetic) state. Hence, our observations for the kagom\,e material contrast with theoretical models treating magnetization as a continuous field, and emphasize the role of lattice geometry on emergent electrodynamic phenomena.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figure