No Arabic abstract
We report the discovery of a novel giant magnetoresistance (GMR) phenomenon in a family of BaMn$_{2}$Pn$_{2}$ antiferromagnets (Pn stands for P, As, Sb, and Bi) with a parity-time symmetry. The resistivities of these materials are reduced by $60$ times in magnetic fields ($vec{H}$s), thus yielding the GMR of about $-98%$. The GMR changes systematically along with the Pn elements, hinting that its origin is the spin orbit coupling (SOC) and/or $d$-$p$ orbital hybridization. A positive MR component emerging on top of the negative GMR at low temperatures suggests an orbital-sensitive magnetotransport as $vec{H}$ suppresses the conduction of the electron-like carriers in the $d$-like band but enhances those of hole-like ones in the $d$-$p$ hybridized band. The anisotropy of the GMR reveals that the electrical conductivity is extremely sensitive to the minute changes in the direction of the antiferromagnetic moments induced by the parity-time breaking $vec{H}$, which seems to be associated with a magnetoelectric effect in the dynamic regime of conduction electrons. We attribute the observed GMR to the non-trivial low energy band of BMPns, which is governed by the parity-time symmetry and an magnetic hexadecapole ordering.
A very large negative magnetoresistance (LNMR) is observed in the insulating regime of the antiferromagnet BaMn$_2$Bi$_2$ when a magnetic field is applied perpendicular to the direction of the sublattice magnetization. High perpendicular magnetic field eventually suppresses the insulating behavior and allows BaMn$_2$Bi$_2$ to re-enter a metallic state. This effect is seemingly unrelated to any field induced magnetic phase transition, as measurements of magnetic susceptibility and specific heat did not find any anomaly as a function of magnetic fields at temperatures above $2,mathrm{K}$. The LNMR appears in both current-in-plane and current-out-of-plane settings, and Hall effects suggest that its origin lies in an extreme sensitivity of conduction processes of holelike carriers to the infinitesimal field-induced canting of the sublattice magnetization. The LNMR-induced metallic state may thus be associated with the breaking of the antiferromagnetic parity-time symmetry by perpendicular magnetic fields and/or the intricate multi-orbital electronic structure of BaMn$_2$Bi$_2$.
Neutron diffraction and magnetic susceptibility studies of a polycrystalline SrCr$_2$As$_2$ sample reveal that this compound is an itinerant G-type antiferromagnet below the N${rm acute{e}}$el temperature $T_{textrm N}$ = 590(5) K with the Cr magnetic moments aligned along the tetragonal $c$ axis. The system remains tetragonal to the lowest measured temperature ($sim$12 K). The lattice parameter ratio $c/a$ and the magnetic moment saturate at about the same temperature below $sim$ 200 K, indicating a possible magnetoelastic coupling. The ordered moment, $mu=1.9(1)~mu_{rm B}$/Cr, measured at $T = 12$ K, is significantly reduced compared to its localized value ($4~mu_{rm B}$/Cr) due to the itinerant character brought about by the hybridization between the Cr $3d$ and As $4p$ orbitals.
We performed an angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy study of BaMn$_2$As$_2$ and BaMn$_2$Sb$_2$, which are isostructural to the parent compound BaFe$_2$As$_2$ of the 122 family of ferropnictide superconductors. We show the existence of a strongly $k_z$-dependent band gap with a minimum at the Brillouin zone center, in agreement with their semiconducting properties. Despite the half-filling of the electronic 3$d$ shell, we show that the band structure in these materials is almost not renormalized from the Kohn-Sham bands of density functional theory. Our photon energy dependent study provides evidence for Mn-pnictide hybridization, which may play a role in tuning the electronic correlations in these compounds.
Large single crystals of the new compound SrMn$_2$V$_2$O$_8$ have been grown by the floating-zone method. This transition-metal based oxide is isostructural to SrNi$_2$V$_2$O$_8$, described by the tetragonal space group $I4_1cd$. Magnetic properties were investigated by means of susceptibility, magnetization, and specific heat measurements. The title compound behaves like a one-dimensional magnetic system above the ordering temperature ($T_N$ = 43 K). The magnetic ground state can be described as a classical long-range ordered antiferromagnet with weak anisotropy.
After growing successfully TaP single crystal, we measured its longitudinal resistivity (rhoxx) and Hall resistivity (rhoyx) at magnetic fields up to 9T in the temperature range of 2-300K. It was found that at 2K its magnetoresistivity (MR) reaches to 328000 percent, at 300K to 176 percent at 8T, and both do not appear saturation. We confirmed that TaP is indeed a low carrier concentration, hole-electron compensated semimetal, with a high mobility of hole muh=371000 cm2V-1s-1, and found that a magnetic-field-induced metal-insulator transition occurs at room temperature. Remarkably, as a magnetic field (H) is applied in parallel to the electric field (E), the negative MR due to chiral anomaly is observed, and reaches to -3000 percent at 9T without any signature of saturation, too, which distinguishes with other Weyl semimetals (WSMs). The analysis on the Shubnikov-de Haas (SdH) oscillations superimposing on the MR reveals that a nontrivial Berry phase with strong offset of 0.3958 realizes in TaP, which is the characteristic feature of the charge carriers enclosing a Weyl nodes. These results indicate that TaP is a promising candidate not only for revealing fundamental physics of the WSM state but also for some novel applications.