Tungsten ditelluride WTe2 is a type-II Weyl semimetal with electronic properties highly sensitive to external pressure, as demonstrated by the superconductivity emerging under pressure. Here, we study the optical conductivity of the type-II Weyl semimetal WTe2 under external pressure at room temperature. With increasing pressure, a pronounced spectral weight transfer occurs from the high-energy to the low-energy interband transitions, with drastic changes in the profile of the optical conductivity spectrum indicating a high sensitivity of the electronic band structure to external pressure. The detailed analysis of the pressure-dependent optical conductivity furthermore reveals anomalies at the pressures ∼2 and ∼4.5~GPa, where an electronic and a structural phase transition, respectively, were reported in the literature.
@article{arxiv.2010.01858,
title = {Optical conductivity of the type-II Weyl semimetal WTe$_2$ under pressure},
author = {M. Krottenmüller and J. Ebad-Allah and V. Süss and C. Felser and C. A. Kuntscher},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2010.01858},
year = {2020}
}