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Ultrahigh conductivity in Weyl semimetal NbAs nanobelts

Nature Materials volume 18, pages 482–488 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

In two-dimensional (2D) systems, high mobility is typically achieved in low-carrier-density semiconductors and semimetals. Here, we discover that the nanobelts of Weyl semimetal NbAs maintain a high mobility even in the presence of a high sheet carrier density. We develop a growth scheme to synthesize single crystalline NbAs nanobelts with tunable Fermi levels. Owing to a large surface-to-bulk ratio, we argue that a 2D surface state gives rise to the high sheet carrier density, even though the bulk Fermi level is located near the Weyl nodes. A surface sheet conductance up to 5–100 S per □ is realized, exceeding that of conventional 2D electron gases, quasi-2D metal films, and topological insulator surface states. Corroborated by theory, we attribute the origin of the ultrahigh conductance to the disorder-tolerant Fermi arcs. The evidenced low-dissipation property of Fermi arcs has implications for both fundamental study and potential electronic applications.

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Fig. 1: Growth and characterization of NbAs nanobelts.
Fig. 2: Transport data for a series of NbAs nanobelts.
Fig. 3: Quantum oscillation analysis and the Fermi surface in NbAs nanobelts.
Fig. 4: A comparison of sheet conductance among various 2D systems and the illustration of scattering mechanisms.

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The data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

F.X. was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 61322407, 11474058, 61674040 and 11874116), National Key Research and Development Program of China (grant nos. 2017YFA0303302 and 2018YFA0305601) and the National Young 1000 Talent Plan. Part of the sample fabrication was performed at Fudan Nano-fabrication Laboratory. Part of the transport measurements was performed at the High Magnetic Field Laboratory, CAS. A portion of this work was performed at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (USA), which is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) cooperative agreement no. DMR-1644779, no. DMR-1157490 and the State of Florida. S.Y.S. was supported by NSF DMR (grant no. 1411336). Australian Research Council and Australian Microscopy and Microanalysis Research Facility are acknowledged for supporting the nano-characterization. A.N. acknowledges support from ETH Zurich. S.S. acknowledges support from Science Foundation Ireland (14/IA/2624 and 16/US-C2C/3287). Part of the computations were carried out at the Trinity Centre for High-Performance Computing. J.Z. was supported by Youth Innovation Promotion Association CAS (grant no. 2018486), the Innovative Program of Development Foundation of Hefei Center for Physical Science and Technology (grant no. 2017FXCX001), and the Scientific Instrument Developing Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant no.YJKYYQ20180059). C.Z. and X.Y. were supported by China Scholarships Council (CSC) (grant nos. 201706100053 and 201706100054). F.X. acknowledges the tremendous help from Y. Chen for TEM characterization in Beijing University of Technology. C.Z. thanks Y. Ding for insightful discussions.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Cheng Zhang, Zhuoliang Ni, Jinglei Zhang, Xiang Yuan.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics and Department of Physics, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

    Cheng Zhang, Zhuoliang Ni, Xiang Yuan, Yanwen Liu, Hongming Zhang, Tiancheng Gu, Xuesong Zhu & Faxian Xiu

  2. Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing, China

    Cheng Zhang, Zhuoliang Ni, Xiang Yuan, Yanwen Liu, Hongming Zhang, Tiancheng Gu, Xuesong Zhu, Yi Shi, Xiangang Wan & Faxian Xiu

  3. Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Condensed Matter Physics at Extreme Conditions, High Magnetic Field Laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, China

    Jinglei Zhang & Li Pi

  4. Materials Engineering, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    Yichao Zou, Zhiming Liao & Jin Zou

  5. Department of Applied Physics and Institution of Energy and Microstructure, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, China

    Yongping Du

  6. Materials Theory, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Awadhesh Narayan

  7. School of Physics and CRANN Institute, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland

    Stefano Sanvito

  8. Beijing Key Laboratory and Institute of Microstructure and Property of Advanced Materials, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing, China

    Xiaodong Han

  9. Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    Jin Zou

  10. School of Electronic Science and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China

    Yi Shi

  11. National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, School of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China

    Xiangang Wan

  12. Department of Physics, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, USA

    Sergey Y. Savrasov

  13. Institute for Nanoelectronic Devices and Quantum Computing, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

    Faxian Xiu

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Contributions

F.X. conceived the ideas and supervised the overall research. Z.N. synthesized NbAs nanobelts with help from C.Z., T.G., H.Z. and X.Z. C.Z. and Z.N. fabricated the devices. C.Z., X.Y. and Y.L. carried out the transport measurements assisted by J.Z. and L.P. X.Y., Y.Z., Z.L., X.H. and J.Z. performed the sample characterization. C.Z. analysed the transport data. Y.D., X.W., A.N., S.S. and S.Y.S. provided the theoretical support. C.Z., S.Y.S. and F.X. wrote the paper with help from all other co-authors.

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Correspondence to Faxian Xiu.

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Supplementary Notes 1–6, Supplementary Figures 1–8, Supplementary Table 1, Supplementary References 1–26

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Zhang, C., Ni, Z., Zhang, J. et al. Ultrahigh conductivity in Weyl semimetal NbAs nanobelts. Nat. Mater. 18, 482–488 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-019-0320-9

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