Published January 29, 2024 | Version v1
Journal article

Effect of electron-phonon scattering on the electronic transport of Weyl semimetal WP2

  • 1. School of Physical Science and Technology, Bohai University, Jinzhou 121013, China
  • 2. Institute of Materials Science, Technical University of Darmstadt, Alarich-Weiss-Str. 2, 64287 Darmstadt, Germany
  • 3. School of Science, Inner Mongolia University of Science and Technology, Baotou 014010, China
  • 4. Key laboratory of Integrated Exploitation of Bayan Obo Multi-Metal Resources, Inner Mongolia University of Science and Technology, Baotou 014010, China
  • 5. State Key Laboratory of Metastable Materials Science & Technology and College of Science, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, Hebei 066004, China

Description

Although the topological properties of type-II Weyl semimetal WP2 have been widely studied by both the experiments and the theoretical calculations, the dominant electron-phonon scattering and the effect of Fermi pockets on the electronic transport still remain elusive. In this work, we investigate the electronic transport of Weyl semimetal WP2 by the first-principles calculations and semiclassical transport theory. The results well reproduce the resistivity from the experiments. Carriers in the Fermi pockets favor much less scattering rates. Holes are found to possess much lower scattering rates than electrons at low temperatures, while both types of carriers have close scattering rates at high temperatures. At low temperatures, the scattering rates are mainly contributed by the acoustic modes, especially the transverse acoustic mode, while the rates at high temperatures are jointly contributed by acoustic modes and low-frequency optical modes, especially B2(1) and B1(2). Compared to other modes, the A1 modes are found to possess larger linewidths and exhibit significant chemical potential dependent behaviors. The low-temperature resistivity is found to increase monotonously as the chemical potential increases. Moreover, both the carrier density and the resistivity can be well tuned by applying the uniaxial or volume strains. The carrier density is enhanced under the tensile strains along the a and c axes, which leads to the decreasing resistivity. In contrast, the tensile strain along the b axis suppresses the carrier density and thus increases the resistivity. The behaviors of carrier density and resistivity can be attributed to the shift of Fermi pockets and the variation of electron-phonon coupling strength under the strains.

Additional details

Identifiers

DOI
10.1103/PhysRevB.109.045149;
Crossref Funder ID
10.13039/501100001809;

Publishing Information

Journal Title
Physical Review B
Journal Volume
109
Journal Issue
4
Journal Page Range
11 pgs.
ISSN
1550-235X

Optional Information

Copyright
©2024 American Physical Society
Contract/Grant/Project number
11504027; 51961031; 51541105
Notes
Contact Email: kczhang@yeah.net; Contact Email: hzhang@tmm.tu-darmstadt.de; Record automatically processed
Funding organization
National Natural Science Foundation of China