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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Emergent heat highways in the Weyl semimetal NdAlSi

Pardeep Kumar Tanwar1,2,*, Ashutosh S. Wadge2, Shivam Yadav3, Ashiwini Balodhi4, Xiaohan Yao5, Andrzej Ptok3,†, Fazel Tafti5, Andrzej Wiśniewski2, and Marcin Matusiak2,6

  • *Contact author: pardeep_kumar.tanwar@fysik.lu.se
  • †Contact author: aptok@mmj.pl
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Phys. Rev. B 112, L081107 – Published 14 August, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/yj5v-jvmb

Abstract

Magnetic Weyl semimetals have emerged as a fertile ground for exploring quantum phases of matter and quasiparticles. The latter includes unconventional fermions with larger Chern numbers than those of conventional Weyl fermions and topologically nontrivial band structures in bosonic excitations. They hold potential for further experimental exploration of emergent quantum matter, magnon-polarons, which arise from hybridization between spin and lattice degrees of freedom. Such hybridization of distinct collective modes offers a pathway to control coupled degrees of freedom as well as quantum phases. Magnon-polarons are anticipated to mark their presence in heat transport. In our findings, we observed a significant rise in magnetothermal conductivity of the Weyl semimetal NdAlSi with complex magnetic order and a ferrimagnetic ground state. Furthermore, our theoretical results predict the existence of chiral phonons with nonvanishing pseudoangular momentum. Eventually, the huge increase in magnetothermal conductivity is attributed to the hybridization or strong coupling of magnons and chiral phonons. These charge-neutral excitations can drive significant advancements in the fields of magnonics, spintronics, and emerging topological quantum computing.

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Phys. Rev. B 112, L081107– Published 14 August, 2025
  • Received 28 February 2025
  • Revised 21 May 2025
  • Accepted 15 July 2025
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