The surprising role for phonons in Topological Semimetals

 · Invited

Abstract

Topological semimetals display a range of novel transport phenomena, including enormous magnetoresistance and mobilities. Observations of such behavior in topological systems suggested the quantum geometry of the electronic bands was a crucial ingredient. However similar behavior has been observed in trivial topological materials. Here I will discuss our recent experiments and first-principles calculations the provide strong evidence for the key role of phonons. In particular, we find the phonon-electron scattering far exceeds the phonon-phonon, suggesting phonons enhance the momentum of the carriers. In addition, I will outline the key ingredients in making this happen.

*Primary support from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences under Award No. DE-SC0018675. Additional support from the STC Center for Integrated Quantum Materials, NSF Grant No. DMR-1231319; the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a DOE Office of Science User Facility supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231; the Department of Defense High-Performance Computing Modernization Program through the Army Research Office MURI Grant on Ab Initio Solid-State Quantum Materials: Design, Production, and Characterization at the Atomic Scale (Grant No. 18057522); NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program under Grant No. DGE1745303; Grant GBMF8048 from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation; and financial support by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research
Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy-EXC2147 “ct.qmat” (project-id 390858490)

–

Presenters

  • Kenneth Burch

    • Physics, Boston University
    • Physics, Boston College
    • Boston College
    • Department of Physics, Boston College

Authors

  • Kenneth Burch

    • Physics, Boston University
    • Physics, Boston College
    • Boston College
    • Department of Physics, Boston College