Directional field-dependence of tunable magnetic domains in noncentrosymmetric ferromagnetic Weyl semimetal CeAlSi

Abstract

Dynamics and textures of magnetic domain walls (DWs) may largely alter the electronic behaviors in a Weyl semimetal system via emergent gauge fields. However, very little is known about even the basic properties of these domain walls in Weyl materials. In this work, we imaged the spontaneous magnetization and magnetic susceptibility of a ferromagnetic (FM) Weyl semimetal CeAlSi using scanning SQUID microscopy. We observed the ferromagnetic DWs lined-up with the [100] direction (or other degenerate directions). We also discovered the coexistence of stable and metastable domain phases, which arise likely due to magnetoelastic and magnetostriction effects and are expected to be highly tunable with small strains. We applied an in-plane external field as the CeAlSi sample was cooled down to below the magnetic phase transition of 8.3K, showing that the pattern of FM domains is strongly correlated with both the amplitude and the orientation of the external field even for weak fields of a few Gausses. The area of stable domains increases with field and reaches maximum when the field is parallel to the main crystallographic axes of the CeAlSi crystal. Our results suggest that the manipulation of these heterogeneous phases can provide a practical way to study the interplay between magnetism and electronic properties in Weyl systems, and that these systems can even serve as a new platform for magnetic sensors.