Engineering Magnetotransport Through Hierarchical Symmetry in Weyl Semimetal Superlattices

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how superlattice engineering in Weyl semimetals can modify magnetotransport properties, revealing detailed quasiparticle information and enabling new quantum transport control methods.

Contribution

It introduces the use of superlattices to control and probe magnetotransport in 3D Weyl semimetals, including commensuration oscillations and asymmetric magnetoresistance.

Findings

Observation of commensuration oscillations in 3D Weyl semimetal NbP.

Extraction of Fermi-momenta and quasiparticle mass at lower fields and higher temperatures.

Engineering of asymmetric magnetoresistance using chiral superlattices.

Abstract

Superlattice engineering is a powerful way to tune the transport properties of a material. In this work we show that magnetotransport can be modified by superlattices in 3D materials based on the relative symmetry between the Fermi-surface and superlattice. We demonstrate commensuration oscillations in the ballistic transport regime of a nanostructured 3D material with the Weyl semimetal NbP, a signature typically limited to superlattices in 2D materials. The behavior of the oscillations encodes information about the shared properties between the quasiparticles at the Fermi-surface--including their momentum, charge, mass, and rotational symmetry--and the structure of the superlattice. The magnetic field and temperature dependence of the commensuration oscillations enables us to extract the Fermi-momenta and quasiparticle mass at an order of magnitude lower magnetic field and higher temperature than Shubnikov-de Haas quantum oscillations. Furthermore, we use a chiral superlattice to engineer asymmetric longitudinal magnetoresistance based on the charge of the quasiparticles and superlattice enantiomer. These results demonstrate nanopatterned superlattices as an effective method for fermiology, and also point towards new ways of engineering quantum transport in these systems based on the mutual properties of the superlattice and Fermi-surface.