A team led by Boston College has devised a new quantum sensor method to image and comprehend the source of photocurrent flow in Weyl semimetals. In a recent paper published in the journal Nature Physics, Brian Zhou, an Assistant Professor of Physics at Boston College, and his colleagues have unco
A team of Boston College researchers discovered that the photocurrent flows in along one crystal axis of the Weyl semimetal and flows out along the perpendicular axis, represented here as a result of a new technique the team developed using quantum magnetic field sensors to visualize the flow of electricity. Credit: Zhou Lab, Boston College
“Most photoelectrical devices require two different materials to create an asymmetry in space,” said Zhou, who worked with eight BC colleagues and two researchers from the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. “Here, we showed that the spatial asymmetry within a single material – in particular the asymmetry in its thermoelectric transport properties – can give rise to spontaneous photocurrents.
“As part of the project, we developed a new technique using quantum magnetic field sensors called nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond to image the local magnetic field produced by the photocurrents and reconstruct the full streamlines of the photocurrent flow,” graduate student Yu-Xuan Wang, lead author on the manuscript, said.
Surprisingly, the appearance of anisotropic thermopower is not necessarily related to the inversion asymmetry displayed by Weyl semimetals, and hence, may be present in other classes of materials.
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