Quantum 2025 – scientific programme
Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Updates | Downloads | Help
MON: Monday Contributed Sessions
MON 21: Quantum Materials
MON 21.1: Talk
Monday, September 8, 2025, 16:30–16:45, ZHG103
Directional Control of Fermi Arcs via Pseudo-Magnetic Fields — Sachin Vaidya1, •Alaa Bayazeed2, Adolfo Grushin3, Marin Soljačić1, and Christina Jörg2 — 11Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA — 2Physics Department and Research Center OPTIMAS, RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau, Germany — 3Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Grenoble INP, Institut Néel, France
Weyl materials are three-dimensional topological systems characterized by Weyl points, which are band crossings in momentum space that act as sources or sinks of Berry curvature. These points give rise to surface states known as Fermi arcs, connecting Weyl points of opposite chirality. Under a magnetic field, the bulk band structure reorganizes into quantized Landau levels (LL), with the zeroth LL inheriting the chirality of the associated Weyl point. We investigate how pseudo-magnetic fields, arising from engineered spatial variations, influence such systems. These fields couple differently to Weyl points of opposite chirality, enabling all zeroth LLs to exhibit the same group velocity. Coating the surfaces with photonic bandgap materials, we suppress this radiation and reveal topological surface states that restore the balance of chirality. We experimentally demonstrate this in a photonic multilayer analogue of Weyl semimetals with tailored layer thicknesses and partially reflective Bragg mirrors. Our system maps complex topological physics of strained Weyl semimetals onto an accessible photonic platform.
Keywords: Photonic Weyl Systems; Pseudo-Magnetic Field; Open Systems in Topological Physics; Synthetic Gauge Fields; Fermi Arc Surface States