Spin-to-charge conversion in magnetic Weyl semimetals.

Weyl semimetals (WSM) are a newly discovered class of quantum materials which can host a number of exotic transport properties in bulk, such as the chiral magnetic effect, negative magnetoresistance, and the anomalous Hall effect. In this work, we investigate theoretically the inverse Edelstein effect (IEE) in a magnetic WSM, i.e., a charge current induced by spin accumulation at the interface between a magnetic WSM and a normal metal. Formally, the induced current is obtained by solving for the scattering wave functions and the nonequilibrium distribution functions in each layer. We find that both surface and bulk states contribute to the IEE, and that the induced current exhibits strong anisotropy: It vanishes along the direction parallel to the line connecting the two Weyl nodes, regardless of the direction of the injected spin. We also determined the dependence of the current on the position of the Fermi level as well as the separation between the two Weyl nodes, which provide extra knobs for controlling the spin-charge conversion in these topological materials.