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- Title
Discovery of a maximally charged Weyl point.
- Authors
Chen, Qiaolu; Chen, Fujia; Pan, Yuang; Cui, Chaoxi; Yan, Qinghui; Zhang, Li; Gao, Zhen; Yang, Shengyuan A.; Yu, Zhi-Ming; Chen, Hongsheng; Zhang, Baile; Yang, Yihao
- Abstract
The hypothetical Weyl particles in high-energy physics have been discovered in three-dimensional crystals as collective quasiparticle excitations near two-fold degenerate Weyl points. Such momentum-space Weyl particles carry quantised chiral charges, which can be measured by counting the number of Fermi arcs emanating from the corresponding Weyl points. It is known that merging unit-charged Weyl particles can create new ones with more charges. However, only very recently has it been realised that there is an upper limit — the maximal charge number that a two-fold Weyl point can host is four — achievable only in crystals without spin-orbit coupling. Here, we report the experimental realisation of such a maximally charged Weyl point in a three-dimensional photonic crystal. The four charges support quadruple-helicoid Fermi arcs, forming an unprecedented topology of two non-contractible loops in the surface Brillouin zone. The helicoid Fermi arcs also exhibit the long-pursued type-II van Hove singularities that can reside at arbitrary momenta. This discovery reveals a type of maximally charged Weyl particles beyond conventional topological particles in crystals. Here the authors experimentally demonstrate a maximally charged Weyl point in a three dimensional photonic crystal, with topological charge of four — the maximal charge number that a two-fold Weyl point can host, which supports quadruple-helicoid Fermi arcs
- Subjects
HYPOTHETICAL particles; PHOTONIC crystals; PARTICLE physics; SPIN-orbit interactions; BRILLOUIN zones
- Publication
Nature Communications, 2022, Vol 13, Issue 1, p1
- ISSN
2041-1723
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1038/s41467-022-34978-z