Wuhan National High Magnetic Field Center
The realization of quantum transport effects at elevated temperatures has long intrigued researchers due to the implications for unveiling novel physics and developing quantum devices. In this work, we report remarkable quantum linear magnetoresistance (LMR) in the Weyl semiconductor tellurium at high temperatures of 40-300 K under strong magnetic fields up to 60 T. At high fields, the Weyl band features a large energy gap between the lowest and first Landau levels, which suppresses thermal excitation and preserves Landau quantization at high temperatures. The LMR is observed as long as majority carriers remain in the lowest Landau level without requiring monochromaticity, allowing it to persist up to room temperature. The inverse relationship between the LMR slope and temperature provides clear evidence that quantum LMR originates from high-temperature phonon scattering in the quantum limit, firstly demonstrating a theoretical prediction made nearly fifty years ago. This study highlights the key role of electron-phonon interaction and reveals an innovative quantum mechanism for achieving high-temperature LMR, fundamentally distinct from previous findings. Our results bridge a gap in the understanding of phonon-mediated quantum-limit physics and establish strong magnetic fields at high temperatures as a promising platform for exploring novel quantum phenomena.
Glass materials, as quintessential non-equilibrium systems, exhibit properties such as energy dissipation that are highly sensitive to their preparation histories. A key challenge has been identifying a unified order parameter to rationalize these properties. Here, we demonstrate that a configurational distance metric can effectively collapse energy dissipation data across diverse preparation histories and testing protocols, including varying cooling rates, aging processes, probing times, and the amplitudes of mechanical excitation, as long as the temperature remains above the so-called ideal glass transition (where the extrapolated structural relaxation time diverges). Our results provide a unified description for the non-equilibrium dissipation and suggest that the putative concept of the ideal glass transition is imprinted in material characteristics
We study the topological phase transitions induced by Coulomb engineering in three triangular-lattice Hubbard models AB2AB_2, AC3AC_3 and B2C3B_2C_3, each of which consists of two types of magnetic atoms with opposite magnetic moments. The energy bands are calculated using the Schwinger boson method. We find that a topological phase transition can be triggered by the second-order (three-site) virtual processes between the two types of magnetic atoms, the strengths of which are controlled by the on-site Coulomb interaction UU. This new class of topological phase transitions have been rarely studied and may be realized in a variety of real magnetic materials.
It is now known that in addition to electrons, other quasi-particles such as phonons and magnons can also generate a thermal Hall signal. Graphite is a semimetal with extremely mobile charge carriers of both signs and a large lattice thermal conductivity. We present a study of the thermal Hall effect in highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) samples with electronic, phononic and phonon drag contributions to the thermal Hall signal. The measured thermal Hall conductivity (κxy\kappa_{xy}) is two orders of magnitude higher than what is expected by electronic carriers according to the electrical Hall conductivity and the Wiedemann-Franz law, yielding a record Hall Lorenz number of 164.9×108V2K2164.9\times10^{-8}V^2 K^{-2} (\sim67L0L_0) - the largest ever observed in a metal. The temperature dependence of the thermal Hall conductivity significantly differs from its longitudinal counterpart, ruling out a purely phononic origin of the non-electronic component. Based on the temperature dependence and the amplitudes of the Seebeck and Nernst responses, we demonstrate that ambipolar phonon drag dominates the thermal Hall response of graphite.
Recently, Jiayi Hu and co-workers reported that they did not resolve any thermal Hall signal in La2_2CuO4_4 by `high resolution' measurements, setting an upper bound of |\kappa_{xy}| <2\times 10^{-3}~Wm1^{-1}K1^{-1} at 20 K. Two points have apparently escaped their attention. First, thermal Hall signals with an amplitude well below this resolution bound have been detected in disordered perovskites. Second, the longitudinal thermal conductivity of their sample is significantly lower than the La2_2CuO4_4 sample displaying a thermal Hall signal. We find that a moderate reduction of κxx\kappa_{xx} in SrTiO3_3 is concomitant with a drastic attenuation of κxy\kappa_{xy}. A trend emerges across several families of insulators: the amplitude of κxy\kappa_{xy} anti-correlates with disorder.
The Josephson diode effect (JDE), a nonreciprocal supercurrent, is a cornerstone for future dissipationless electronics, yet achieving high efficiency in a simple device architecture remains a significant challenge. Here, we theoretically investigate the JDE in a junction based on monolayer 1T'-WTe2_2. We first establish that different edge terminations of a WTe2_2 nanoribbon lead to diverse electronic band structures, some of which host asymmetric edge states even with crystallographically equivalent terminations. This intrinsic asymmetry provides a natural platform for realizing the JDE. With a WTe2_2-based Josephson junction, we demonstrate a significant JDE arising purely from these asymmetric edges when time-reversal symmetry is broken by a magnetic flux. While the efficiency of this edge-state-driven JDE is inherently limited, we discover a crucial mechanism for its enhancement: by tuning the chemical potential into the bulk bands, the interplay between edge and bulk transport channels boosts the maximum diode efficiency more than 50%50\%. Furthermore, we show that this enhanced JDE is robust against moderate edge disorder. Our findings not only propose a novel route to achieve a highly efficient JDE using intrinsic material properties but also highlight the potential of engineered WTe2_2 systems for developing advanced superconducting quantum devices.
The realization of quantum gates in topological quantum computation still confronts significant challenges in both fundamental and practical aspects. Here, we propose a deterministic and fully topologically protected measurement-based scheme to realize the issue of implementing Clifford quantum gates on the Majorana qubits. Our scheme is based on rigorous proof that the single-qubit gate can be performed by leveraging the neighboring Majorana qubit but not disturbing its carried quantum information, eliminating the need for ancillary Majorana zero modes (MZMs) in topological quantum computing. Benefiting from the ancilla-free construction, we show the minimum measurement sequences with four steps to achieve two-qubit Clifford gates by constructing their geometric visualization. To avoid the uncertainty of the measurement-only strategy, we propose manipulating the MZMs in their parameter space to correct the undesired measurement outcomes while maintaining complete topological protection, as demonstrated in a concrete Majorana platform. Our scheme identifies the minimal operations of measurement-based topological and deterministic Clifford gates and offers an ancilla-free design of topological quantum computation.
The nature of localized-itinerant transition in Kondo lattice systems remains a mystery despite intensive investigations in past decades. While it is often identified from the coherent peak in magnetic resistivity, recent angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and ultrafast optical spectroscopy revealed a precursor incoherent region with band bending and hybridization fluctuations. This raises the question of how the coherent heavy-electron state is developed from an incoherent background of fluctuating localized moments and then established at sufficiently low temperatures. Here, on the example of the quasi-one-dimensional Kondo lattice compound CeCo2_2Ga8_8, we show that planar Hall effect and planar anisotropic magnetoresistance measurements provide an effective way to disentangle the incoherent Kondo scattering contribution and the coherent heavy-electron contribution, and a multi-stage process is directly visualized with lowering temperature by their distinct angle-dependent patterns in magneto-transport. Our idea may be extended to other measurements and thereby opens up a pathway for systematically investigating the fundamental physics of Kondo lattice coherence.
A large transverse thermoelectric response, known as anomalous Nernst effect (ANE) has been recently observed in several topological magnets. Building a thermopile employing this effect has been the subject of several recent propositions. Here, we design and build a thermopile with an array of tilted adjacent crystals of Mn3_3Sn. The design employs a single material and replaces pairs of P and N thermocouples of the traditional design with hermaphroditic legs. The design exploits the large lag angle between the applied field and the magnetization, which we attribute to the interruption of magnetic octupoles at the edge of xyxy-plane. Eliminating extrinsic contacts between legs will boost the efficiency, simplify the process and pave the way for a new generation of thermopiles.
It is now known that in addition to electrons, other quasi-particles such as phonons and magnons can also generate a thermal Hall signal. Graphite is a semimetal with extremely mobile charge carriers of both signs and a large lattice thermal conductivity. We present a study of the thermal Hall effect in highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) samples with electronic, phononic and phonon drag contributions to the thermal Hall signal. The measured thermal Hall conductivity (κxy\kappa_{xy}) is two orders of magnitude higher than what is expected by electronic carriers according to the electrical Hall conductivity and the Wiedemann-Franz law, yielding a record Hall Lorenz number of 164.9×108V2K2164.9\times10^{-8}V^2 K^{-2} (\sim67L0L_0) - the largest ever observed in a metal. The temperature dependence of the thermal Hall conductivity significantly differs from its longitudinal counterpart, ruling out a purely phononic origin of the non-electronic component. Based on the temperature dependence and the amplitudes of the Seebeck and Nernst responses, we demonstrate that ambipolar phonon drag dominates the thermal Hall response of graphite.
The heavy fermion metamagnet uranium ditelluride possesses two distinct magnetic field--induced superconducting states. One of these superconductive phases resides at magnetic fields immediately below a first-order metamagnetic transition to a field--polarized paramagnetic state at a field strength HmH_m, while the other exists predominantly above HmH_m. However, little is known about the microscopic properties of this polarized paramagnetic state. Here we report pulsed magnetic field measurements tracking the evolution of HmH_m for polar and azimuthal inclinations in the vicinity of the crystallographic bab-a plane. We uncover a region of the phase diagram at high fields >> 50 T with a ripple-like non-monotonic dependence of HmH_m on the orientation of field. Within this ripple in the metamagnetic transition surface, HmH_m exhibits an anomalous temperature dependence. Our results point towards the presence of complex magnetic interactions and possible magnetic sub-phases at high magnetic fields in UTe2_2, which may have important implications for the manifestation of exotic field-induced superconductivity.
Very recently, unconventional superconductivity has been observed in the double twisted trilayer graphene (TLG), where three monolayer graphene (MLG) are stacked on top of each other with two twist angles [J. M. Park, et al., Nature 590, 249 (2021); Z. Hao, et al., Science 371, 1133 (2021); X. Zhang, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett.127, 166802 (2021)]. When some of MLGs in the double twisted TLG are replaced by bilayer graphene (BLG), we get a new family of double twisted moire heterostructure, namely double twisted few layer graphene (DTFLG). In this work, we theoretically investigate the moire band structures of the DTFLGs with diverse arrangements of MLG and BLG. We find that, depending on the relative rotation direction of the two twist angles (alternate or chiral twist) and the middle van der Waals (vdW) layer (MLG or BLG), a general (X+Y+Z)-DTFLG can be classified into four categories, i.e. (X+1+Z)-ATFLG, (X+2+Z)-ATFLG, (X+1+Z)-CTFLG and (X+2+Z)-CTFLG, each of which has its own unique band structure. Here, X, Y, Z denote the three vdW layers, i.e. MLG or BLG. Interestingly, the (X+1+Z)-ATFLGs have a pair of perfect flat bands at the magic angle about 1.541.54^\circ coexisting with a pair of linear or parabolic bands, which is quite like the double twisted TLG. Meanwhile, when the twist angle is smaller than a "magic angle" 1.701.70^\circ, the (X+2+Z)-CTFLGs can have two isolated narrow bands at EfE_f with band width less than 5 meV. The influence of electric field and the topological features of the moire bands have been studied as well. Our work indicates that the DTFLGs, especially the (X+1+Z)-ATFLG and (X+2+Z)-CTFLG, are promising platforms to study the moire flat band induced novel correlation and topological effects.
Hall effect of topological quantum materials often reveals essential new physics and possesses potential for application. Magnetic Weyl semimetal is one especially interesting example that hosts an interplay between the spontaneous time-reversal symmetry-breaking topology and the external magnetic field. However, it is less known beyond the anomalous Hall effect thereof, which is unable to account for plenty of magnetotransport measurements. We propose a new Hall effect characteristically nonmonotonic with respect to the external field, intrinsic to the three-dimensional Weyl topology and free from chemical potential fine-tuning. Two related mechanisms from the Landau level bending and chiral Landau level shifting are found, together with their relation to Shubnikov-de Hass effect. This field-dependent Hall response, universal to thin films and bulk samples, provides a concrete physical picture for existing measurements and is promising to guide future experiments.
Altermagnets have recently garnered significant interest due to their vanishing net magnetic moment and non-relativistic momentum-dependent spin splitting. However, altermagnetic (AM) multiferroics especially triferroics remain scarce. We investigate the experimentally synthesized non-van der Waals CrSb as a model system to explore the effects of dimensionality and facet orientation on its ferroic properties. NiAs, MnP, wurtzite (WZ), zincblende (ZB), and rocksalt (RS) phases are considered. Using first-principles calculations, we predict the altermagnetism of CrSb in MnP phase which has comparable stability with experimental NiAs phase. Both NiAs- and MnP-phase (110) facets exhibit AM-ferroelastic (FC) biferroics, while the WZ-phase bulk and (001) facets host ferromagnetic (FM) or AM-ferroelectric (FE) biferroics. Notably, the WZ-phase (110) facets are identified as FM/AM-FE-FC triferroics, with moderate energy barriers of 0.129 and 0.363 eV atom-1 for FE and FC switching, respectively. Both FE and FC switching can reverse the AM spin splitting in antiferromagnetic (AFM) configurations while preserving the high spin polarization in FM states. The magnetic anisotropy is highly tunable, exhibiting either uniaxial or in-plane behavior depending on the phase, dimension, and facet. This work establishes a framework for designing AM multiferroics through polymorphic, dimensional, and facet engineering, offering promising avenues for multifunctional spintronic applications.
Rare-earth (RE) based frustrated magnets have attracted great attention as excellent candidates for magnetic refrigeration at sub-Kelvin temperatures, while the experimental identification on systems exhibiting both large volumetric cooling capacity and reduced working temperatures far below 1 K remain to be a challenge. Here, through the ultra-low temperature magnetism and thermodynamic characterizations, we unveil the large magnetocaloric effect (MCE) realized at sub-Kelvin temperatures in the frustrated Kagome antiferromagnet Gd3BWO9 with TN~1.0 K. The isothermal magnetization curves indicate the existence of field (B) induced anisotropic magnetic phase diagrams, where four distinct magnetic phases for B // c-axis and five magnetic phases for B // ab-plane are identified at T< TN. The analysis of magnetic entropy S(B, T) data and direct adiabatic demagnetization tests reveal a remarkable cooling performance at sub-Kelvin temperatures featured by a large volumetric entropy density 502.2 mJ/K/cm3 and a low attainable minimal temperature Tmin~168 mK from the initial cooling condition of 2 K and 6 T, surpassing most of Gd-based refrigerants previously documented in temperature ranges of 0.25-4 K. The realized Tmin~168 mK far below TN ~ 1.0 K in Gd3BWO9 is related to the combined effects of magnetic frustration and criticality-enhanced MCE, which together leave a substantial magnetic entropy at reduced temperatures by enhancing spin fluctuations.
Dirac metals (gapless semi-conductors) are believed to turn into Weyl metals when perturbations, which break either time reversal symmetry or inversion symmetry, are employed. However, no experimental evidence has been reported for the existence of Weyl fermions in three dimensions. Applying magnetic fields near the topological phase transition from a topological insulator to a band insulator in Bi1-xSbx, we observe not only the weak anti-localization phenomenon in magnetoconductivity near zero magnetic fields (B < 0.4 T) but also its upturn above 0.4 T only for E // B. This incompatible coexistence between weak anti-localization and negative magnetoresistivity is attributed to the Adler-Bell-Jackiw anomaly (topological E B term) in the presence of weak anti-localization corrections.
Magnetic Weyl semimetals (WSMs) bearing long-time pursuing are still very rare. We herein identified magnetic exchange induced Weyl state in EuCd2Sb2, a semimetal in type IV magnetic space group, via performing high magnetic field (B) magneto-transport measurements and ab initio calculations. For the A-type antiferromagnetic (AFM) structure of EuCd2Sb2, external B larger than 3.2 T can align Eu spins to be fully polarized along the c-axis and consequently drive the system into a ferromagnetic (FM) state. Measurements up to B ~ 55 T revealed a striking Shubnikov-de Hass oscillation imposed by a nontrivial Berry phase. We unveiled a phase transition from a small-gap AFM topological insulator into a FM WSM in which Weyl points emerged along the {\Gamma}-Z path. Fermi arcs on (100) and (010) surfaces are also revealed. The results pave a way towards realization of various topological states in a single material through magnetic exchange manipulation.
The frustrated honeycomb spin model can stabilize a subextensively degenerate spiral spin liquid with nontrivial topological excitations and defects, but its material realization remains rare. Here, we report the experimental realization of this model in the structurally disorder-free compound GdZnPO. Using a single-crystal sample, we find that spin-7/2 rare-earth Gd3+^{3+} ions form a honeycomb lattice with dominant second-nearest-neighbor antiferromagnetic and first-nearest-neighbor ferromagnetic couplings, along with easy-plane single-site anisotropy. This frustrated model stabilizes a unique spiral spin liquid with a degenerate contour around the K\mathrm{K}{\{1/3,1/3}\} point in reciprocal space, consistent with our experiments down to 30 mK, including the observation of a giant residual specific heat. Our results establish GdZnPO as an ideal platform for exploring the stability of spiral spin liquids and their novel properties, such as the emergence of low-energy topological defects on the sublattices.
In this work, we systematically study two phases, called Andreev π\pi-phase and orbital-phase, and their influence on the Josephson effect. When the system is time-reversal invariant and centrosymmetric, these two phases only appear in the odd-parity pairings. The Andreev π\pi-phase has nothing to do with the specific form of the odd-parity pairings and means an intrinsic π\pi-phase between the spin-triplet Cooper pairs entering and leaving CTSCs in the Andreev reflections. The orbital-phase corresponds to the phase difference between the spin-triplet Cooper pairs with opposite spin polarization and depends on the specific form of the odd-parity gap functions. When the normal region of the Josephson junction contacts the same side of the CTSCs with some specific odd-parity parings, the competition between the two phases can lead to the Josephson π\pi-junction. Note that this junction is different from that of the conventional Josephson junction (JJ) and is dubbed a U-shaped junction according to its geometry. Meanwhile, in a conventional JJ, the interplay of these two phases causes their impact on the CPR to be completely canceled out. Therefore no matter what kind of pairing symmetries the CTSC has, it will lead to Josephson 0-junction in this case. We obtain our results based on the model of the Mx_{x}Bi2_2Se3_3 family where M may be Cu, Sr, or Nb. Therefore, we propose to detect the pairing symmetry of Mx_{x}Bi2_2Se3_3 through a superconducting quantum interference device containing a U-shaped Josephson junction.
The coexistence of metallicity and ferroelectricity in ferroelectric (FE) metals defies conventional wisdom and enables novel functionalities in electronic and optoelectronic systems. However, intrinsic FE metals remain extremely rare and challenging. Here, using first-principles calculations, we identify that a huge spontaneous polarization of 16.6-20.2 μC/cm2\mu\text{C}/\text{cm}^2, a moderate switching barrier of 68.5 meV/f.u., and a low carrier concentration of 2.5×1020 \sim 2.5 \times 10^{20} cm3^{-3} coexist in topological semimetal EuAuBi. Further electron-phonon coupling calculations reveal that the metallic carriers interact weakly with the FE phonon mode, consistent with the decoupled electron mechanism. Moreover, EuAuBi exhibits a pronounced bulk photovoltaic effect characterized by a giant polarization-dependent shift current with the magnitude of conductivity up to 370 μA/V2\mu\text{A}/\text{V}^2. Thus, a feasible FE metal verification setup is proposed based on the shift current measurement. These results not only demonstrate that EuAuBi is a promising FE metal, but also propose a practical route for FE metals identification, which could promote the FE metals study greatly.
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