Observation of surface Fermi arcs in altermagnetic Weyl semimetal CrSb

TL;DR

This study provides experimental evidence of surface Fermi arcs in the altermagnetic Weyl semimetal CrSb, revealing nontrivial topological properties and confirming theoretical predictions about altermagnets' electronic structures.

Contribution

First experimental observation of surface Fermi arcs in an altermagnetic Weyl semimetal using ARPES and first-principles calculations.

Findings

Clear band spin splitting observed in CrSb

Discrete surface Fermi arcs identified near the Fermi level

CrSb exhibits nontrivial Weyl topological features

Abstract

As a special type of collinear antiferromagnetism (AFM), altermagnetism has garnered significant research interest recently. Altermagnets exhibit broken parity-time symmetry and zero net magnetization in real space, leading to substantial band splitting in momentum space even in the absence of spin-orbit coupling. Meanwhile, parity-time symmetry breaking always induce nontrivial band topology such as Weyl nodes. While Weyl semimetal states and nodal lines have been theoretically proposed in altermagnets, rare reports of experimental observation have been made up to this point. Using ARPES and first-principles calculations, we systematically studied the electronic structure of the room-temperature altermagnet candidate CrSb. At generic locations in momentum space, we clearly observed band spin splitting. Furthermore, we identified discrete surface Fermi arcs on the (100) cleaved side surface close to the Fermi level originating from bulk band topology. Our results imply that CrSb contains interesting nontrivial topological Weyl physics, in addition to being an excellent room temperature altermagnet.