# Current-Voltage Characteristics of Weyl Semimetal Semiconducting   Devices, Veselago Lenses and Hyperbolic Dirac Phase

**Authors:** R. D. Y. Hills, A. Kusmartseva, and F. V. Kusmartsev

arXiv: 1706.03275 · 2017-06-13

## TL;DR

This paper predicts the current-voltage behavior of Weyl semimetal devices, explores Veselago lens applications for enhanced microscopy, and discusses pressure-induced topological phase transitions leading to hyperbolic Dirac phases.

## Contribution

It introduces a novel analysis of Weyl semimetal devices using Landauer formalism and proposes practical applications of Veselago lenses in electron microscopy.

## Key findings

- Weyl semimetal devices exhibit unique current-voltage characteristics.
- Veselago lenses can focus Weyl fermions for high-resolution STM imaging.
- Pressure can induce topological phase transitions to hyperbolic Dirac phases.

## Abstract

The current-voltage characteristics of a new range of devices built around Weyl semimetals has been predicted using the Landauer formalism. The potential step and barrier have been reconsidered for a three-dimensional Weyl semimetals, with analogies to the two-dimensional material graphene and to optics. With the use of our results we also show how a Veselago lens can be made from Weyl semimetals, e.g. from NbAs and NbP. Such a lens may have many practical applications and can be used as a probing tip in a scanning tunneling microscope (STM). The ballistic character of Weyl fermion transport inside the semimetal tip, combined with the ideal focusing of the Weyl fermions (by Veselago lens) on the surface of the tip may create a very narrow electron beam from the tip to the surface of the studied material. With a Weyl semimetal probing tip the resolution of the present STMs can be improved significantly, and one may image not only individual atoms but also individual electron orbitals or chemical bonding and therewith to resolve the long-term issue of chemical and hydrogen bond formation. We show that applying a pressure to the Weyl semimental, having no centre of spacial inversion one may model matter at extreme conditions such as those arising in the vicinity of a black hole. As the materials Cd3As2 and Na3Bi show an asymmetry in their Dirac cones, a scaling factor was used to model this asymmetry. The scaling factor created additional regions of no propagation and condensed the appearance of resonances. We argue that under an external pressure there may arise a topological phase transition in Weyl semimetals, where the electron transport changes character and becomes anisotropic. There a hyperbolic Dirac phases occurs where there is a strong light absorption and photo-current generation.

## Full text

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## Figures

11 figures with captions in the complete paper: https://tomesphere.com/paper/1706.03275/full.md

## References

65 references — full list in the complete paper: https://tomesphere.com/paper/1706.03275/full.md

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Source: https://tomesphere.com/paper/1706.03275