Fabry-Perot interferometry in Weyl semi-metals

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that electrical transport in Weyl semimetals can be understood as a momentum-space interferometer, with tunable interference effects influencing conductance, revealing new insights into their quantum transport properties.

Contribution

It introduces a novel interpretation of Weyl semimetal transport as a momentum-space interferometer, highlighting the effects of symmetry breaking and node separation on conductance.

Findings

Interference phase depends on Weyl node separation and is anisotropic.

Inversion symmetry breaking leads to two effective interferometers.

Conductance oscillations can be tuned by adjusting Weyl node separation.

Abstract

We show that the electrical transport across a minimal model for a time-reversal symmetry(TRS) breaking Weyl semi-metal (WSM) involving two Weyl nodes can be interpreted as an interferometer in momentum space. The interference phase depends on the distance between the Weyl nodes ($\vec{\delta k}$) and is {\it anisotropic}. It is further shown that a minimal inversion symmetry broken model for a WSM with four Weyl nodes effectively mimics a situation corresponding to having two copies of the interferometer due to the presence of an orbital pseudo-spin domain wall in momentum space. We point out that the value of the $\delta k$ and consequently the interference phase can be tuned by driving the WSMs resulting in oscillations in the two terminal conductance measured in the direction of splitting of the Weyl nodes.