Evidence of Weyl fermions in α−RuCl3

Abstract

Layered honeycomb lattice antiferromagnetic $\ensuremath{\alpha}\text{\ensuremath{-}}\mathrm{Ru}{\mathrm{Cl}}_{3}$ has been studied intensively recently as a Kitaev spin liquid candidate. Here we present strong evidence that this material host realistic Weyl fermions derived from Cl $2p$ electrons. Our theoretical analysis suggests the existence of quadratic Weyl fermions without spin-orbit coupling and linear Weyl fermion with spin-orbit coupling. Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy with systematic photon energy-dependent measurements demonstrates that this Weyl cone possesses linear dispersion at bulk Brillouin zone center along all the three reciprocal directions and hyperbolic dispersion off center. Our work reveals the rich topological physics lying in the band structure of Kitaev QSL candidates and will stimulate further investigation not only limited to $\ensuremath{\alpha}\text{\ensuremath{-}}\mathrm{Ru}{\mathrm{Cl}}_{3}$ but also honeycomb iridate family of materials.