Similar ultrafast dynamics of several dissimilar Dirac and Weyl semimetals

Abstract

Recent years have seen the rapid discovery of solids whose low-energy electrons have a massless, linear dispersion, such as Weyl, line-node, and Dirac semimetals. The remarkable optical properties predicted in these materials show their versatile potential for optoelectronic uses. However, little is known of their response in the picoseconds after absorbing a photon. Here we measure the ultrafast dynamics of four materials that share non-trivial band structure topology but that differ chemically, structurally, and in their low-energy band structures: ZrSiS, which hosts a Dirac line node and Dirac points; TaAs and NbP, which are Weyl semimetals; and Sr${}_{1-y}$Mn${}_{1-z}$Sb${}_2$, in which Dirac fermions coexist with broken time-reversal symmetry. After photoexcitation by a short pulse, all four relax in two stages, first sub-picosecond, and then few-picosecond. Their rapid relaxation suggests that these and related materials may be suited for optical switches and fast infrared detectors. The complex change of refractive index shows that photoexcited carrier populations persist for a few picoseconds.

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Cited by in corpus (20)

• Chemical Principles of Topological Semimetals
• Topological Semimetals in Square-Net Materials
• Light-induced renormalization of the Dirac quasiparticles in the nodal-line semimetal ZrSiSe
• Surface Termination Dependent Quasiparticle Scattering Interference and Magneto-transport Study on ZrSiS
• Topological frequency conversion in Weyl semimetals
• Photoinduced renormalization of Dirac states in BaNiS${}_2$
• High-harmonic generation in semi-Dirac and Weyl semimetals with broken time-reversal symmetry: Exploring merging of Weyl nodes
• Hot electron cooling in Dirac semimetal Cd${}_3$As${}_2$ due to polar optical phonons
• Quasi-2D magnetism and origin of the Dirac semimetallic behavior in nonstoichiometric Sr${}_{1-y}$Mn${}_{1-z}$Sb${}_2$ (y, z~$<$0.1)
• Photocurrent-driven transient symmetry breaking in the Weyl semimetal TaAs
• Quasiparticle interference observation of the topologically non-trivial drumhead surface state in ZrSiTe
• Electron dynamics in a three-dimensional Brillouin zone analysed by machine learning
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