Eur. Phys. J. B (2017) 90: 36
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2017-80021-0

Regular Article

Detecting three-dimensional Weyl semimetal with a laser pulse

School of Science, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, P.R. China

^a e-mail: wangyixiang@jiangnan.edu.cn

Received: 12 June 2016
Received in final form: 10 January 2017
Published online: 15 February 2017

Abstract

Three-dimensional Weyl semimetals have attracted many interests nowadays as they own novel topological properties. Here we propose to detect the Weyl semimetal by the scattered electrons (SEs) in the presence of a magnetic field. A laser pulse may cause the transition of electrons between different Landau levels (LLs) and therefore the SEs are induced. We make a detailed analysis of the SEs and find that the SEs and accompanying selection rules are different when the laser pulse acts perpendicular and parallel to the magnetic field. We also investigate the influence of temperature on the SEs. In addition, a comparison with graphene was also made, where the SEs exhibit δ-peaks. The implications of our results in experiment are discussed.