Topological phase transition between distinctWeyl semimetal states in MoTe2

Abstract

We present experimental evidence of an intriguing phase transition between distinct topological states in the type-II Weyl semimetal MoTe2. We observe anomalies in the Raman phonon frequencies and linewidths as well as electronic quasielastic peaks around 70 K, which, together with structural, thermodynamic measurements, and electron-phonon coupling calculations, demonstrate a temperature-induced transition between two topological phases previously identified by contrasting spectroscopic measurements. An analysis of experimental data suggests electron-phonon coupling as the main driving mechanism for the change of key topological characters in the electronic structure of MoTe2.We also find the phase transition to be sensitive to sample conditions distinguished by synthesis methods. These discoveries of temperature and material condition-dependent topological phase evolutions and transitions in MoTe2 advance the fundamental understanding of the underlying physics and enable an effective approach to tuning Weyl semimetal states for technological applications.

6 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (11)

• Titanic Magnetoresistance in WTe2
• Weyl semimetal phase in non-centrosymmetric transition metal monophosphides
• Superconductivity of doped Weyl semimetals: finite-momentum pairing and electronic analogues of the 3He-A phase
• The extremely large magnetoresistance in the Candidate Type-II Weyl semimetal MoTe2
• Activation of new Raman modes by inversion symmetry breaking in type II Weyl semimetal candidate T'-MoTe2
• Phonon-induced topological transitions and crossovers in Dirac materials
• Raman scattering in transition metal dichalcogenides MTe2 (M = Mo, W)
• Anticorrelation between polar lattice instability and superconductivity in the Weyl semimetal candidate MoTe2
• Phonon-induced topological insulation
• Chiral anomaly induced negative magnetoresistance in topological Weyl semimetal NbAs
• Disorder Induced Phase Transitions of Type-II Weyl Semimetal

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Signature of weakly coupled $f$ electrons and conduction electrons in magnetic Weyl semimetal candidates PrAlSi and SmAlSi
• Topological phase transition in MoTe${}_2$: A Review
• Persistence of Monoclinic Crystal Structure in Three-Dimensional Second-Order Topological Insulator Candidate 1T'-MoTe2 Thin Flake without Structural Phase transition
• Nonlinear bulk photocurrent probe Z2 topological phase transition
• Collapse of N$=$28 magicity in exotic ${}^{40}$Mg -- Probe of deformed halo and 2n-radioactivity at Mg neutron drip-line