Fermi arc reconstruction at the interface of twisted Weyl semimetals

Abstract

Three-dimensional Weyl semimetals have pairs of topologically protected Weyl nodes, whose projections onto the surface Brillouin zone are the end points of zero energy surface states called Fermi arcs. At the endpoints of the Fermi arcs, surface states extend into and are hybridized with the bulk. Here, we consider a two-dimensional junction of two identical Weyl semimetals whose surfaces are twisted with respect to each other and tunnel-coupled. Confining ourselves to commensurate angles (such that a larger unit cell preserves a reduced translation symmetry at the interface) enables us to analyze arbitrary strengths of the tunnel-coupling. We study the evolution of the Fermi arcs at the interface, in detail, as a function of the twisting angle and the strength of the tunnel-coupling. We show unambiguously that in certain parameter regimes, all surface states decay exponentially into the bulk, and the Fermi arcs become Fermi loops without endpoints. We study the evolution of the `Fermi surfaces' of these surface states as the tunnel-coupling strengths vary. We show that changes in the connectivity of the Fermi arcs/loops have interesting signatures in the optical conductivity in the presence of a magnetic field perpendicular to the surface.

18 pages, 12 figures

References in corpus (6)

• The electronic properties of graphene
• 2D materials and van der Waals heterostructures
• Phase transition between the quantum spin Hall and insulator phases in 3D: emergence of a topological gapless phase
• Rare region effects dominate weakly disordered 3D Dirac points
• Effective field theory of the disordered Weyl semimetal
• Josephson effect in a Weyl SNS junction

Cited by in corpus (12)

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• Fermi-arc metals
• Time-reversal-broken Weyl semimetal in the Hofstadter regime
• Magnetic Breakdown and Chiral Magnetic Effect at Weyl-Semimetal Tunnel Junctions
• Broken symmetry and competing orders in Weyl semimetal interfaces
• Quantum Oscillation Signatures of Fermi Arcs in Tunnel Magnetoconductance
• Quantum description of Fermi arcs in Weyl semimetals in a magnetic field
• Tunnelling theory of Weyl semimetals in proximity to a metallic band
• Magneto tunnel conductance across twisted Weyl semimetal junctions
• Magnetotransport across Weyl semimetal grain boundaries