No Arabic abstract
Disorder-induced magnetoresistance has been reported in a range of solid metals and semiconductors, however, the underlying physical mechanism is still under debate because it is difficult to experimentally control. Liquid metals, due to lack of long-range order, offers an ideal model system where many forms of disorder can be deactivated by freezing the liquid. Here we report non-saturating magnetoresistance discovered in the liquid state of three metals: Ga, Ga-In-Sn and Bi-Pb-Sn-In alloys. The giant magnetoresistance appears above the respective melting points and has a maximum of 2500% at 14 Tesla. The reduced diamagnetism in the liquid state implies that a short-mean free path of the electron, induced by the spatial distribution of the liquid structure, is a key factor. A potential technological merit of this liquidtronic magnetoresistance is that it naturally operates at higher temperatures.
Topological materials with extremely large magnetoresistance exhibit a prognostic feature of resistivity turn-on behaviour. This occurs when the temperature dependence of resistivity changes from metallic to semiconducting characteristics on application of external magnetic field above a threshold value. Here, we study the magneto-transport properties of type-II Weyl Semimetal WP2. We find that semi-classical theories of magnetoresistance are consistent with our data without the need to invoke topological surface states. Our findings in this work provides an alternative basis to understand the temperature dependence of magnetoresistance in topological materials.
The interaction between graphene and metals represents an important issue for the large-area preparation of graphene, graphene transfer and the contact quality in graphene devices. We demonstrate a simple method for estimating and manipulating the level of interaction between graphene and copper single crystals through heat treatment, at temperatures from 298K to 1073K. We performed an in-situ Raman spectroscopy showing Cu face-specific behavior of the overlying graphene during the heat treatment. On Cu(111) the interaction is consistent with theoretical predictions and remains stable, whereas on Cu(100) and Cu(110), the initially very weak interaction and charge transfer can be tuned by heating. Our results also suggest that graphene grown on Cu(100) and Cu(110) is detached from the copper substrate, thereby possibly enabling an easier graphene transfer process as compared to Cu (111).
Anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR), originating from spin-orbit coupling (SOC), is the sensitivity of the electrical resistance in magnetic systems to the direction of spin magnetization. Although this phenomenon has been experimentally reported for several nanoscale junctions, a clear understanding of the physical mechanism behind it is still elusive. Here we discuss a novel concept based on orbital symmetry considerations to attain a significant AMR of up to 95% for a broad class of $pi$-type molecular spin-valves. It is illustrated at the benzene-dithiolate molecule connected between two monoatomic nickel electrodes. We find that SOC opens, via spin-flip events at the ferromagnet-molecule interface, a new conduction channel, which is fully blocked by symmetry without SOC. Importantly, the interplay between main and new transport channels turns out to depend strongly on the magnetization direction in the nickel electrodes due to the tilting of molecular orbital. Moreover, due to multi-band quantum interference, appearing at the band edge of nickel electrodes, a transmission drop is observed just above the Fermi energy. Altogether, these effects lead to a significant AMR around the Fermi level, which even changes a sign. Our theoretical understanding, corroborated in terms of textit{ab initio} calculations and simplified analytical models, reveals the general principles for an efficient realization of AMR in molecule-based spintronic devices.
Graphene is a powerful playground for studying a plethora of quantum phenomena. One of the remarkable properties of graphene arises when it is strained in particular geometries and the electrons behave as if they were under the influence of a magnetic field. Previously, these strain-induced pseudomagnetic fields have been explored on the nano- and micrometer-scale using scanning probe and transport measurements. Heteroepitaxial strain, in contrast, is a wafer-scale engineering method. Here, we show that pseudomagnetic fields can be generated in graphene through wafer-scale epitaxial growth. Shallow triangular nanoprisms in the SiC substrate generate strain-induced uniform fields of 41 T. This enables the observation of strain-induced Landau levels at room temperature, as detected by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, and confirmed by model calculations and scanning tunneling microscopy measurements. Our work demonstrates the feasibility of exploiting strain-induced quantum phases in two-dimensional Dirac materials on a wafer-scale platform, opening the field to new applications.
Two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) formed at the interface between SrTiO3 (STO) and LaAlO3 (LAO) insulating layer is supposed to possess strong Rashba spin-orbit coupling. To date, the inverse Edelstein effect (i.e. spin-to-charge conversion) in the 2DEG layer is reported. However, the direct effect of charge-to-spin conversion, an essential ingredient for spintronic devices in a current induced spin-orbit torque scheme, has not been demonstrated yet. Here we show, for the first time, a highly efficient spin generation with the efficiency of ~6.3 in the STO/LAO/CoFeB structure at room temperature by using spin torque ferromagnetic resonance. In addition, we suggest that the spin transmission through the LAO layer at high temperature range is attributed to the inelastic tunneling via localized states in the LAO band gap. Our findings may lead to potential applications in the oxide insulator based spintronic devices.