TaAs Weyl semimetal based one-dimensional photonic structures

TL;DR

This paper explores the design of one-dimensional photonic structures incorporating TaAs Weyl semimetal layers, demonstrating potential for novel optical applications due to TaAs's unique refractive properties.

Contribution

It introduces a new approach of integrating TaAs Weyl semimetal into 1D photonic crystals and microcavities, highlighting its potential in photonic device engineering.

Findings

TaAs exhibits a high real part of the refractive index in infrared.

Designs of TaAs-based photonic crystals and microcavities are proposed.

Potential applications in infrared photonics are suggested.

Abstract

Weyl semimetals can be described as the three-dimensional analogue of graphene, showing linear dispersion around nodes (Weyl points) [1]. Tantalum arsenide (TaAs) is among the most studied Weyl semimetals. It has been demonstrated that TaAs has a very high value of the real part of the complex refractive index in the infrared region [2]. In this work we show one-dimensional photonic crystals alternating TaAs with SiO2 or TiO2 and a microcavity where a layer of TaAs is embedded between two SiO2-TiO2 multilayer.