Disorder-driven non-Anderson transition in a Weyl semimetalShow others and affiliations
2025 (English)In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, ISSN 0027-8424, E-ISSN 1091-6490, Vol. 122, no 41, article id e2508569122Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
For several decades, it was widely believed that a noninteracting disordered electronic system could only undergo an Anderson metal-insulator transition due to Anderson localization. However, numerous recent theoretical works have predicted the existence of a disorder-driven non-Anderson phase transition that differs from Anderson localization. The frustration lies in the fact that this non-Anderson disorder-driven transition has not yet been experimentally demonstrated in any system. Here, using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, we present a case study of observing the non-Anderson disorder-driven transition by visualizing the electronic structure of the Weyl semimetal NdAlSi on surfaces with varying amounts of disorder. Our observations reveal that strong disorder can effectively suppress all surface states in the Weyl semimetal NdAlSi, including the topological surface Fermi arcs. This disappearance of surface Fermi arcs is associated with the vanishing of the topological invariant, indicating a quantum phase transition from a Weyl semimetal to a diffusive metal. These observations provide direct experimental evidence of the non-Anderson disorder-driven transition occurring in real quantum systems, a finding long anticipated by theoretical physicists.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , 2025. Vol. 122, no 41, article id e2508569122
Keywords [en]
non-Anderson transition, ARPES, Weyl semimetal, electronic structure
National Category
Condensed Matter Physics
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-375102DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2508569122ISI: 001600412900001PubMedID: 41066113Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105018262122OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kth-375102DiVA, id: diva2:2026663
Note
QC 20260109
2026-01-092026-01-092026-01-09Bibliographically approved