Searching for two-dimensional Weyl superconductors in heterostructures

Abstract

The two-dimensional Weyl superconductor is the most elusive member of a group of materials with Weyl fermions as low-energy excitations. Here, we propose to realize this state in a heterostructure consisting of thin films of half-metal and spin-singlet superconductors. In particular, for the d-wave case, a very robust two-dimensional Weyl superconductor (dWSC) is realized independently of the orientation of the spontaneous magnetization of the half metal. The quasiparticle spectra of the dWSC show interesting evolution with the direction of the magnetization, featured by a series of Lifshitz transitions in the zero-energy contour of the quasiparticle spectrum. In addition, we find a transition between type-I and type-II Weyl nodes. This is an example of a two-dimensional type-II Weyl node in the presence of a superconducting correlation. For a general magnetization orientation of the half metal, the state is a combination of a superconducting component and a normal fluid component and is different from all known forms of pairings. The symmetries and topological properties of the system are analyzed. We also study the phases in the heterostructure with the half metal replaced by a ferromagnetic metal with a partially spin-polarized Fermi surface.

Similar papers