No Arabic abstract
We report experimental observation of the Planar Hall effect (PHE) in a type-II Dirac semimetal PtTe$_2$. This unusual Hall effect is not expected in nonmagnetc materials such as PtTe$_2$, and has been observed previously mostly in magnetic semiconductors or metals. Remarkably, the PHE in PtTe$_2$ can be observed up to temperatures near room temperature which indicates the robustness of the effect. This is in contrast to the chiral anomaly induced negative longitudnal magnetoresistance (LMR), which can be observed only in the low temperature regime and is sensitive to extrinsic effects, such as current jetting and chemical inhomogeneities in crystals of high mobility. Planar Hall effect on the other hand is a purely intrinsic effect generated by the Berry curvature in Weyl semimetals. Additionally, the PHE is observed for PtTe$_2$ even though the Dirac node is $approx 0.8$~eV away from the Fermi level. Thus our results strongly indicate that PHE can be used as a crucial transport diagnostic for topological character even for band structures with Dirac nodes slightly away from the Fermi energy.
Dirac and Weyl semimetals are new discovered topological nontrivial materials with the linear band dispersions around the Dirac/Weyl points. When applying non-orthogonal electric current and magnetic field, an exotic phenomenon called chiral anomaly arises and negative longitudinal resistance can be detected. Recently, a new phenomenon named planer Hall effect (PHE) is considered to be another indication of chiral anomaly which has been observed in many topological semimetals. However, it still remains a question that is the PHE only attributed to chiral anomaly? Here we demonstrate the PHE in a new-discovered type-II Dirac semimetal NiTe2 by low temperature transport. However, after detailed analysis, we conclude that the PHE results from the trivial orbital magnetoresistance. This work reveals that PHE is not a sufficient condition of chiral anomaly and one need to take special care of other non-topological contribution in such studies.
The study of electronic properties in topological systems is one of the most fascinating topics in condensed matter physics, which has generated enormous interests in recent times. New materials are frequently being proposed and investigated to identify their non-trivial band structure. While sophisticated techniques such as angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy have become popular to map the energy-momentum relation, the transport experiments lack any direct confirmation of Dirac and Weyl fermions in a system. From band structure calculations, VAl$_{3}$ has been proposed to be a type II topological Dirac semimetal. This material represents a large family of isostructural compounds, all having similar electronic band structure and is an ideal system to explore the rich physics of Lorentz symmetry violating Dirac fermions. In this work, we present a detailed analysis on the magnetotransport properties of VAl$_{3}$. A large, non-saturating magnetoresistance has been observed. Hall resistivity reveals the presence of two types of charge carriers with high mobility. Our measurements show a large planar Hall effect in this material, which is robust and can be easily detectable up to high temperature. This phenomenon originates from the relativistic chiral anomaly and non-trivial Berry curvature, which validates the theoretical prediction of the Dirac semimetal phase in VAl$_{3}$.
We report detailed magneto-transport measurements on single crystals of the magnetic Weyl semi-metal Co$_{3}$Sn$_{2}$S$_{2}$. Recently a large anomalous Hall effect and chiral anomaly have been observed in this material which have been suggested to be related to the large Berry curvature between the Weyl points (Liu et al., Nature Physics (2018).). Another effect expected to result from the topological band structure of magnetic Weyl materials is the planar Hall effect (PHE). In this work we report observation of this intrinsic effect in single crystals of Co$_{3}$Sn$_{2}$S$_{2}$. Crucially, the PHE is observed for temperature $T leq 74$~K which is much smaller than the ferromagnetic ordering temperature $T_c = 175$~K@. Together with the large anomalous Hall conductivity, this further demonstrates the Topological character of Co$_3$Sn$_2$S$_2$.
Anisotropic magnetoresistance is the change tendency of resistance of a material on the mutual orientation of the electric current and the external magnetic field. Here, we report experimental observations in the Dirac semimetal Cd3As2 of giant anisotropic magnetoresistance and its transverse version, called the planar Hall effect. The relative anisotropic magnetoresistance is negative and up to -68% at 2 K and 10 T. The high anisotropy and the minus sign in this isotropic and nonmagnetic material are attributed to a field-dependent current along the magnetic field, which may be induced by the Berry curvature of the band structure. This observation not only reveals unusual physical phenomena in Weyl and Dirac semimetals, but also finds additional transport signatures of Weyl and Dirac fermions other than negative magnetoresistance.
As a newly emergent type-II Dirac semimetal, Platinum Telluride (PtTe2) stands out from other 2D noble-transition-metal dichalcogenides for the unique structure and novel physical properties, such as high carrier mobility, strong electron-phonon coupling and tunable bandgap, which make the PtTe2 a good candidate for applications in optoelectronics, valleytronics and far infrared detectors. Although the transport properties of PtTe2 have been studied extensively, the dynamics of the nonequilibrium carriers remain nearly uninvestigated. Herein we employ optical pump-terahertz (THz) probe spectroscopy (OPTP) to systematically study the photocarrier dynamics of PtTe2 thin films with varying pump fluence, temperature, and film thickness. Upon photoexcitation the THz photoconductivity (PC) of 5 nm PtTe2 film shows abrupt increase initially, while the THz PC changes into negative value in a subpicosecond time scale, followed by a prolonged recovery process that lasted hundreds of picoseconds (ps). This unusual THz PC response observed in the 5 nm PtTe2 film was found to be absent in a 2 nm PtTe2 film. We assign the unexpected negative THz PC as the small polaron formation due to the strong electron-Eg-mode phonon coupling, which is further substantiated by pump fluence- and temperature-dependent measurements as well as the Raman spectroscopy. Moreover, our investigations give a subpicosecond time scale of sequential carrier cooling and polaron formation. The present study provides deep insights into the underlying dynamics evolution mechanisms of photocarrier in type-II Dirac semimetal upon photoexcitation, which is fundamental importance for designing PtTe2-based optoelectronic devices.