Landau level splitting in Cd3As2 under high magnetic fields

Junzhi Cao; Sihang Liang; Cheng Zhang; Yanwen Liu; Junwei Huang; Zhao Jin; Zhi-Gang Chen; Zhijun Wang; Qisi Wang; Jun Zhao; Shiyan Li; Xi Dai; Jin Zou; Zhengcai Xia; Liang Li; Faxian Xiu

doi:10.1038/ncomms8779

Landau level splitting in Cd3As2 under high magnetic fields

Nat Commun. 2015 Jul 13:6:7779. doi: 10.1038/ncomms8779.

Authors

Junzhi Cao^{1

2}, Sihang Liang^{1

2}, Cheng Zhang^{1

2}, Yanwen Liu^{1

2}, Junwei Huang³, Zhao Jin³, Zhi-Gang Chen⁴, Zhijun Wang⁵, Qisi Wang^{1

2}, Jun Zhao^{1

2}, Shiyan Li^{1

2}, Xi Dai⁵, Jin Zou^{4

6}, Zhengcai Xia³, Liang Li³, Faxian Xiu^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics and Department of Physics, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.
² Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.
³ Wuhan National High Magnetic Field Center, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China.
⁴ Department of Materials Engineering, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia.
⁵ Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics and Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
⁶ Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland 4072, Australia.

Abstract

Three-dimensional topological Dirac semimetals (TDSs) are a new kind of Dirac materials that exhibit linear energy dispersion in the bulk and can be viewed as three-dimensional graphene. It has been proposed that TDSs can be driven to other exotic phases like Weyl semimetals, topological insulators and topological superconductors by breaking certain symmetries. Here we report the first transport experiment on Landau level splitting in TDS Cd3As2 single crystals under high magnetic fields, suggesting the removal of spin degeneracy by breaking time reversal symmetry. The detected Berry phase develops an evident angular dependence and possesses a crossover from non-trivial to trivial state under high magnetic fields, a strong hint for a fierce competition between the orbit-coupled field strength and the field-generated mass term. Our results unveil the important role of symmetry breaking in TDSs and further demonstrate a feasible path to generate a Weyl semimetal phase by breaking time reversal symmetry.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't