Shubnikov–de Haas oscillations and nontrivial topological states in Weyl semimetal candidate SmAlSi

Abstract

The RAlX (R = Light rare earth; X = Ge, Si) compounds, as a family of magnetic Weyl semimetal, have recently attracted growing attention due to the tunability of Weyl nodes and its interactions with diverse magnetism by rare-earth atoms. Here, we report the magnetotransport evidence and electronic structure calculations on nontrivial band topology of SmAlSi, a new member of this family. At low temperatures, SmAlSi exhibits large non-saturated magnetoresistance (MR) (as large as ∼5500% at 2 K and 48 T) and distinct Shubnikov–de Haas (SdH) oscillations. The field dependent MRs at 2 K deviate from the semiclassical (μ 0 H)2 variation but follow the power-law relation MR (μ 0 H) m with a crossover from m ∼ 1.52 at low fields (μ 0 H< 15 T) to m ∼ 1 under high fields (μ 0 H> 18 T), which is attributed to the existence of Weyl points and electron–hole compensated characteristics with high mobility. From the analysis of SdH oscillations, two fundamental frequencies originating from the Fermi surface pockets with non-trivial π Berry phases and small cyclotron mass can be identified, this feature is supported by the calculated electronic band structures with two Weyl pockets near the Fermi level. Our study establishes SmAlSi as a paradigm for researching the novel topological states of RAlX family.