Quantum transport evidence of Weyl fermions in an epitaxial ferromagnetic oxide

Abstract

Magnetic Weyl fermions, which occur in magnets, have novel transport phenomena related to pairs of Weyl nodes, and they are, of both, scientific and technological interest, with the potential for use in high-performance electronics, spintronics and quantum computing. Although magnetic Weyl fermions have been predicted to exist in various oxides, evidence for their existence in oxide materials remains elusive. SrRuO3, a 4d ferromagnetic metal often used as an epitaxial conducting layer in oxide heterostructures, provides a promising opportunity to seek for the existence of magnetic Weyl fermions. Advanced oxide thin film preparation techniques, driven by machine learning technologies, may allow access to such topological matter. Here we show direct quantum transport evidence of magnetic Weyl fermions in an epitaxial ferromagnetic oxide SrRuO3: unsaturated linear positive magnetoresistance (MR), chiral-anomaly-induced negative MR, Pi Berry phase accumulated along cyclotron orbits, light cyclotron masses and high quantum mobility of about 10000 cm2/Vs. We employed machine-learning-assisted molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) to synthesize SrRuO3 films whose quality is sufficiently high to probe their intrinsic quantum transport properties. We also clarified the disorder dependence of the transport of the magnetic Weyl fermions, and provided a brand-new diagram for the Weyl transport, which gives a clear guideline for accessing the topologically nontrivial transport phenomena. Our results establish SrRuO3 as a magnetic Weyl semimetal and topological oxide electronics as a new research field.