Weyl Semimetal from the Honeycomb Array of Topological Insulator Nanowires

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that a honeycomb array of topological insulator nanowires can host Weyl nodes, providing a new theoretical platform to study topological semi-metal phases and their electromagnetic responses.

Contribution

It introduces a novel system of topological insulator nanowires arranged in a honeycomb pattern that can host Weyl nodes, expanding the understanding of topological semi-metals.

Findings

Isolated Weyl nodes can emerge in the proposed nanowire system.

The topological electromagnetic response depends on Weyl node separation.

Multiple Weyl node pairs can lead to cancellation of Hall conductivity.

Abstract

We show that isolated Weyl nodes can arise in a system of parallel topological insulator nano-wires arranged in a honeycomb fashion. This introduces another theoretical example of a topological semi-metal phase with more than one pair of Weyl nodes and due to the simple form of its Hamiltonian it can be used to study various interesting phenomena associated with this phase. Our result emphasizes that depending on the separation of the Weyl nodes a topological electromagnetic response might or might not emerge and two pairs might have overall cancelling contributions to the net anomalous Hall conductivity.