Three-dimensional chiral Veselago lensing

TL;DR

This paper proposes a three-dimensional electronic Veselago lens that selectively focuses electrons based on chirality using topological semimetals, enabling new optical and electronic imaging capabilities.

Contribution

It introduces a novel single-material 3D chiral Veselago lens leveraging topological semimetals and their chiral anomaly, expanding beyond previous 2D or non-chiral platforms.

Findings

Chiral Veselago lens can be created using topological semimetals.

The lens can be tuned with magnetic fields to achieve ideal focusing.

It predicts giant non-local magnetoresistance as an observable effect.

Abstract

The effect by which light focuses upon entering a medium with a negative refractive index, known as Veselago lensing, may enable optical imaging below the diffraction limit. Similarly, focusing electrons across a $pn$-junction could realize a technologically promising electronic Veselago lens. However, its scope remains limited by the lack of three-dimensional platforms and its insensitivity to computational degrees of freedom, like spin or chirality. Here we propose a single-material three-dimensional electronic Veselago lens that selectively focuses electrons of a given chirality. Using the chiral anomaly of topological semimetals it is possible to create a sharp $pn$-junction for a single chirality, a chiral Veselago lens, and tune it with a magnetic field to an ideal lensing condition. We estimate that chiral Veselago lensing is observable in non-local transport and spectroscopy experiments. In particular we show that the chiral Veselago lens leads to giant non-local magnetoresistance.