Twisted photonic Weyl meta-crystals and aperiodic Fermi arc scattering

Hanyu Wang; Wei Xu; Zeyong Wei; Yiyuan Wang; Zhanshan Wang; Xinbin Cheng; Qinghua Guo; Jinhui Shi; Zhihong Zhu; Biao Yang

doi:10.1038/s41467-024-46759-x

Twisted photonic Weyl meta-crystals and aperiodic Fermi arc scattering

Nat Commun. 2024 Mar 18;15(1):2440. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-46759-x.

Authors

Hanyu Wang^#^{1

2

3}, Wei Xu^#^{1

2

3}, Zeyong Wei^#⁴, Yiyuan Wang^#⁵, Zhanshan Wang⁴, Xinbin Cheng⁴, Qinghua Guo⁶, Jinhui Shi⁷, Zhihong Zhu^{8

9

10}, Biao Yang^{11

12

13}

Affiliations

¹ College of Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha, 410073, China.
² Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Novel Nano-Optoelectronic Information Materials and Devices, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha, 410073, China.
³ Nanhu Laser Laboratory, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha, 410073, China.
⁴ Institute of Precision Optical Engineering, School of Physics Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200092, China.
⁵ Key Laboratory of In-Fiber Integrated Optics of Ministry of Education, College of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin, 150001, China.
⁶ School of Physics and Electronics, Hunan University, Changsha, 410082, China. guoqh@hnu.edu.cn.
⁷ Key Laboratory of In-Fiber Integrated Optics of Ministry of Education, College of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin, 150001, China. shijinhui@hrbeu.edu.cn.
⁸ College of Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha, 410073, China. zzhwcx@163.com.
⁹ Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Novel Nano-Optoelectronic Information Materials and Devices, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha, 410073, China. zzhwcx@163.com.
¹⁰ Nanhu Laser Laboratory, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha, 410073, China. zzhwcx@163.com.
¹¹ College of Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha, 410073, China. yangbiaocam@nudt.edu.cn.
¹² Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of Novel Nano-Optoelectronic Information Materials and Devices, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha, 410073, China. yangbiaocam@nudt.edu.cn.
¹³ Nanhu Laser Laboratory, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha, 410073, China. yangbiaocam@nudt.edu.cn.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

As a milestone in the exploration of topological physics, Fermi arcs bridging Weyl points have been extensively studied. Weyl points, as are Fermi arcs, are believed to be only stable when preserving translation symmetry. However, no experimental observation of aperiodic Fermi arcs has been reported so far. Here, we continuously twist a bi-block Weyl meta-crystal and experimentally observe the twisted Fermi arc reconstruction. Although both the Weyl meta-crystals individually preserve translational symmetry, continuous twisting operation leads to the aperiodic hybridization and scattering of Fermi arcs on the interface, which is found to be determined by the singular total reflection around Weyl points. Our work unveils the aperiodic scattering of Fermi arcs and opens the door to continuously manipulating Fermi arcs.