Tunable Weyl Semimetals in Periodically Driven Nodal Line Semimetals

Weyl semimetals and nodal line semimetals are characterized by linear band-touching at nodal points and lines, respectively. We predict that a circularly polarized light drives nodal line semimetals into Weyl semimetals. The Weyl points of the Floquet Weyl semimetal thus obtained are tunable by the incident light, which enables investigations of them in a highly controllable manner. The transition from nodal line semimetals to Weyl semimetals is accompanied by the emergence of a large and tunable anomalous Hall conductivity. Our predictions are experimentally testable in thin films of topological semimetals by either pump-probe ARPES or transport measurement.