Intrinsic diamagnetism in the Weyl semimetal TaAs

We investigate the magnetic properties of TaAs, a prototype Weyl semimetal. TaAs crystals show diamagnetism with magnetic susceptibility of about −7×10−7 emu/(g Oe) at 5 K. A general feature is the appearance of a minimum at around 185 K in magnetization measurements as a function of temperature, which resembles that of graphite. No phase transition is observed in the temperature range between 5 K and 400 K.