Topological Materials: Weyl Semimetals
Open accessAbstract
Topological insulators and topological semimetals are both new classes of quantum materials, which are characterized by surface states induced by the topology of the bulk band structure. Topological Dirac or Weyl semimetals show linear dispersion around nodes, termed the Dirac or Weyl points, as the three-dimensional analog of graphene. We review the basic concepts and compare these topological states of matter from the materials perspective with a special focus on Weyl semimetals. The TaAs family is the ideal materials class to introduce the signatures of Weyl points in a pedagogical way, from Fermi arcs to the chiral magnetotransport properties, followed by hunting for the type-II Weyl semimetals in WTe 2 , MoTe 2 , and related compounds. Many materials are members of big families, and topological properties can be tuned. As one example, we introduce the multifunctional topological materials, Heusler compounds, in which both topological insulators and magnetic Weyl semimetals can be found. Instead of a comprehensive review, this article is expected to serve as a helpful introduction and summary by taking a snapshot of the quickly expanding field.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Different calculations show different results on the kz position of W1 and there is no resolution on this point.
“However, different calculations show different results in this regard (Huang et al. , 2015a; Weng et al. , 2015a; Yan and Felser, 2017) and there is no resolution on this point.”
From Weyl and Dirac semimetals in three-dimensional solids (2018) · cites this paper as Yan and Felser, 2017
There are 24 Weyl nodes in the bandstructure of the TaAs class of compounds.
“There are 24 Weyl nodes in the bandstructure of the TaAs class of compounds (Yan and Felser, 2017).”
From Weyl and Dirac semimetals in three-dimensional solids (2018) · cites this paper as Yan and Felser, 2017
Cites
Topological insulators and superconductors
Qi, X.-L., & Zhang, S.-C. (2011) · Reviews of Modern Physics · doi:10.1103/revmodphys.83.1057 · Cited by 14,394 · see citing works
Quantum Spin Hall Insulator State in HgTe Quantum Wells
König, M., Wiedmann, S., Brüne, C., Roth, A., Buhmann, H., Molenkamp, L. W., Qi, X.-L., & Zhang, S.-C. (2007) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1148047 · Cited by 6,151 · see citing works
Superconducting Proximity Effect and Majorana Fermions at the Surface of a Topological Insulator
Fu, L., & Kane, C. L. (2008) · Physical Review Letters · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.100.096407 · Cited by 4,868 · see citing works
Wan, X., Turner, A. M., Vishwanath, A., & Savrasov, S. Y. (2011) · Physical Review B · doi:10.1103/physrevb.83.205101 · Cited by 4,718 · see citing works
Observation of a large-gap topological-insulator class with a single Dirac cone on the surface
Xia, Y., Qian, D., Hsieh, D., Wray, L., Pal, A., Lin, H., Bansil, A., Grauer, D., Hor, Y. S., Cava, R. J., et al. (2009) · Nature Physics · doi:10.1038/nphys1274 · Cited by 3,765 · see citing works
Discovery of a Weyl fermion semimetal and topological Fermi arcs
Xu, S.-Y., Belopolski, I., Alidoust, N., Neupane, M., Bian, G., Zhang, C., Sankar, R., Chang, G., Yuan, Z., Lee, C.-C., et al. (2015) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.aaa9297 · Cited by 3,396 · see citing works
Topological Insulator Materials
Ando, Y. (2013) · Journal of the Physical Society of Japan · doi:10.7566/jpsj.82.102001 · Cited by 1,789 · see citing works
Large anomalous Hall effect in a non-collinear antiferromagnet at room temperature
Nakatsuji, S., Kiyohara, N., & Higo, T. (2015) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature15723 · Cited by 1,721 · see citing works
Absence of neutrinos on a lattice
Nielsen, H. B., & Ninomiya, M. (1981) · Nuclear Physics B · doi:10.1016/0550-3213(81)90361-8 · Cited by 1,719 · see citing works
Observation of a three-dimensional topological Dirac semimetal phase in high-mobility Cd3As2
Neupane, M., Xu, S.-Y., Sankar, R., Alidoust, N., Bian, G., Liu, C., Belopolski, I., Chang, T.-R., Jeng, H.-T., Lin, H., et al. (2014) · Nature Communications · doi:10.1038/ncomms4786 · Cited by 1,399 · see citing works
Experimental observation of Weyl points
Lu, L., Wang, Z., Ye, D., Ran, L., Fu, L., Joannopoulos, J. D., & Soljačić, M. (2015) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.aaa9273 · Cited by 1,067 · see citing works
Observation of Weyl nodes in TaAs
Lv, B. Q., Xu, N., Weng, H. M., Ma, J. Z., Richard, P., Huang, X. C., Zhao, L. X., Chen, G. F., Matt, C. E., Bisti, F., et al. (2015) · Nature Physics · doi:10.1038/nphys3426 · Cited by 1,061 · see citing works
Experimental observation of topological Fermi arcs in type-II Weyl semimetal MoTe2
Deng, K., Wan, G., Deng, P., Zhang, K., Ding, S., Wang, E., Yan, M., Huang, H., Zhang, H., Xu, Z., et al. (2016) · Nature Physics · doi:10.1038/nphys3871 · Cited by 794 · see citing works
Signatures of the Adler–Bell–Jackiw chiral anomaly in a Weyl fermion semimetal
Zhang, C.-L., Xu, S.-Y., Belopolski, I., Yuan, Z., Lin, Z., Tong, B., Bian, G., Alidoust, N., Lee, C.-C., Huang, S.-M., et al. (2016) · Nature Communications · doi:10.1038/ncomms10735 · Cited by 760 · see citing works
Lin, H., Wray, L. A., Xia, Y., Xu, S., Jia, S., Cava, R. J., Bansil, A., & Hasan, M. Z. (2010) · Nature Materials · doi:10.1038/nmat2771 · Cited by 736 · see citing works
The chiral anomaly and thermopower of Weyl fermions in the half-Heusler GdPtBi
Hirschberger, M., Kushwaha, S., Wang, Z., Gibson, Q., Liang, S., Belvin, C. A., Bernevig, B. A., Cava, R. J., & Ong, N. P. (2016) · Nature Materials · doi:10.1038/nmat4684 · Cited by 576 · see citing works
Kim, H.-J., Kim, K.-S., Wang, J.-F., Sasaki, M., Satoh, N., Ohnishi, A., Kitaura, M., Yang, M., & Li, L. (2013) · Physical Review Letters · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.111.246603 · Cited by 425 · see citing works
Magnetism and heavy fermion-like behavior in the RBiPt series
Canfield, P. C., Thompson, J. D., Beyermann, W. P., Lacerda, A., Hundley, M. F., Peterson, E., Fisk, Z., & Ott, H. R. (1991) · Journal of Applied Physics · doi:10.1063/1.350141 · Cited by 198 · see citing works
Chiral Weyl Pockets and Fermi Surface Topology of the Weyl Semimetal TaAs
Arnold, F., Naumann, M., Wu, S.-C., Sun, Y., Schmidt, M., Borrmann, H., Felser, C., Yan, B., & Hassinger, E. (2016) · Physical Review Letters · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.117.146401 · Cited by 112 · see citing works
Self-citation
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Weyl and Dirac semimetals in three-dimensional solids
Armitage, N. P., Mele, E. J., & Vishwanath, A. (2018) · Reviews of Modern Physics · doi:10.1103/revmodphys.90.015001 · Cited by 4,528 · see citing works
“…(Burkov, 2017, 2016; Hasan et al., 2017, 2015; Jia et al., 2016; Syzranov and Radzihovsky, 2018; Šmejkal et al., 2017a; WitczakKrempa et al., 2014; Yan and Felser, 2017) and connections to related systems like nodal superconductors have been reviewed in Schnyder and Brydon, 2015; Vafek and…”
BackgroundGiant anomalous Hall effect in a ferromagnetic kagome-lattice semimetal
Liu, E., Sun, Y., Kumar, N., Muechler, L., Sun, A., Jiao, L., Yang, S.-Y., Liu, D., Liang, A., Xu, Q., et al. (2018) · Nature Physics · doi:10.1038/s41567-018-0234-5 · Cited by 1,367 · see citing works
Self-citationSemimetals for high-performance photodetection
Liu, J., Xia, F., Xiao, D., García de Abajo, F. J., & Sun, D. (2020) · Nature Materials · doi:10.1038/s41563-020-0715-7 · Cited by 326 · see citing works
Transport of Topological Semimetals
Hu, J., Xu, S.-Y., Ni, N., & Mao, Z. (2019) · Annual Review of Materials Research · doi:10.1146/annurev-matsci-070218-010023 · Cited by 265 · see citing works
Topological Semimetals from First Principles
Gao, H., Venderbos, J. W. F., Kim, Y., & Rappe, A. M. (2019) · Annual Review of Materials Research · doi:10.1146/annurev-matsci-070218-010049 · Cited by 263 · see citing works
Matter manipulation with extreme terahertz light: Progress in the enabling THz technology
Salén, P., Basini, M., Bonetti, S., Hebling, J., Krasilnikov, M., Nikitin, A. Y., Shamuilov, G., Tibai, Z., Zhaunerchyk, V., & Goryashko, V. (2019) · Physics Reports · doi:10.1016/j.physrep.2019.09.002 · Cited by 262 · see citing works
Tracking Ultrafast Photocurrents in the Weyl Semimetal TaAs Using THz Emission Spectroscopy
Sirica, N., Tobey, R. I., Zhao, L. X., Chen, G. F., Xu, B., Yang, R., Shen, B., Yarotski, D. A., Bowlan, P., Trugman, S. A., et al. (2019) · Physical Review Letters · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.122.197401 · Cited by 115 · see citing works
Ultrafast investigation and control of Dirac and Weyl semimetals
Weber, C. P. (2021) · Journal of Applied Physics · doi:10.1063/5.0035878 · Cited by 55 · see citing works
Photocurrent-driven transient symmetry breaking in the Weyl semimetal TaAs
Sirica, N., Orth, P. P., Scheurer, M. S., Dai, Y. M., Lee, M.-C., Padmanabhan, P., Mix, L. T., Teitelbaum, S. W., Trigo, M., Zhao, L. X., et al. (2022) · Nature Materials · doi:10.1038/s41563-021-01126-9 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
Weyl and Dirac Semimetals in Three Dimensional Solids
Armitage, N. P., Mele, E. J., & Vishwanath, A. (2017) · arXiv
“…(Burkov, 2017, 2016; Hasan et al., 2017, 2015; Jia et al., 2016; Syzranov and Radzihovsky, 2018; Šmejkal et al., 2017a; WitczakKrempa et al., 2014; Yan and Felser, 2017) and connections to related systems like nodal superconductors have been reviewed in Schnyder and Brydon, 2015; Vafek and…”
Background
- Authors
- Yan, B., & Felser, C.
- Affiliations
- Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids (DE)
- Venue
- Annual Review of Condensed Matter Physics
- Publisher
- Annual Reviews
- Published
- 2017-03-31
- Volume
- 8
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 337-354
- ISSN
- 1947-5454 (ISSN-L)
- 1947-5462
- OpenAlex
- W2341694669
- Cited by
- 1,740
- References
- 19
- Citations by year
- 2026: 149 · 2025: 217 · 2024: 218 · 2023: 166 · 2022: 216 · 2021: 229 · 2020: 238 · 2019: 153 · 2018: 115 · 2017: 36 · 2016: 2
- FWCI
- 10.04
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- arxiv.org
- Locations
- Annual Review of Condensed Matter Physics (publishedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics › Topological Materials and Phenomena
- Physical Sciences › Materials Science › Materials Chemistry › 2D Materials and Applications
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Condensed Matter Physics › Advanced Condensed Matter Physics
- Keywords
- Weyl semimetals, topological semimetals, topological insulators, Dirac point, Weyl points, Fermi arcs, type-II Weyl semimetal, thoracic aortic aneurysm, WTe2, MoTe2, Heusler alloys, topological band structure, quantum materials
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review