No Arabic abstract
We present a detailed study of magnetoresistance r{ho}xx(H), Hall effect r{ho}xy(H), and electrolyte gating effect in thin (<100 nm) exfoliated crystals of WTe2. We observe quantum oscillations in H of both r{ho}xx(H) and r{ho}xy(H), and identify four oscillation frequencies consistent with previous reports in thick crystals. r{ho}xy(H) is linear in H at low H consistent with near-perfect electron-hole compensation, however becomes nonlinear and changes sign with increasing H, implying a breakdown of compensation. A field-dependent ratio of carrier concentrations p/n can consistently explain r{ho}xx(H) and r{ho}xy(H) within a two-fluid model. We also employ an electrolytic gate to highly electron-dope WTe2 with Li. The non-saturating r{ho}xx(H) persists to H = 14 T with magnetoresistance ratio exceeding 2 x 104 %, even with significant deviation from perfect electron-hole compensation (p/n = 0.84), where the two-fluid model predicts a saturating r{ho}xx(H). Our results suggest electron-hole compensation is not the mechanism for extremely large magnetoresistance in WTe2, other alternative explanations need to be considered.
Since the discovery of extremely large non-saturating magnetoresistance (MR) in WTe2, much effort has been devoted to understanding the underlying mechanism, which is still under debate. Here, we explicitly identify the dominant physical origin of the large non-saturating MR through in-situ tuning of the magneto-transport properties in thin WTe2 film. With an electrostatic doping approach, we observed a non-monotonic gate dependence of the MR. The MR reaches a maximum (10600%) in thin WTe2 film at certain gate voltage where electron and hole concentrations are balanced, indicating that the charge compensation is the dominant mechanism of the observed large MR. Besides, we show that the temperature dependent magnetoresistance exhibits similar tendency with the carrier mobility when the charge compensation is retained, revealing that distinct scattering mechanisms may be at play for the temperature dependence of magneto-transport properties. Our work would be helpful for understanding mechanism of the large MR in other nonmagnetic materials and offers an avenue for achieving large MR in the non-magnetic materials with electron-hole pockets.
We report the detailed electronic structure of WTe$_2$ by high resolution angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. Unlike the simple one electron plus one hole pocket type of Fermi surface topology reported before, we resolved a rather complicated Fermi surface of WTe$_2$. Specifically, there are totally nine Fermi pockets, including one hole pocket at the Brillouin zone center $Gamma$, and two hole pockets and two electron pockets on each side of $Gamma$ along the $Gamma$-$X$ direction. Remarkably, we have observed circular dichroism in our photoemission spectra, which suggests that the orbital angular momentum exhibits a rich texture at various sections of the Fermi surface. As reported previously for topological insulators and Rashiba systems, such a circular dichroism is a signature for spin-orbital coupling (SOC). This is further confirmed by our density functional theory calculations, where the spin texture is qualitatively reproduced as the conjugate consequence of SOC. Since the backscattering processes are directly involved with the resistivity, our data suggest that the SOC and the related spin and orbital angular momentum textures may be considered in the understanding of the anomalous magnetoresistance of WTe$_2$.
The silver chalcogenides provide a striking example of the benefits of imperfection. Nanothreads of excess silver cause distortions in the current flow that yield a linear and non-saturating transverse magnetoresistance (MR). Associated with the large and positive MR is a negative longitudinal MR. The longitudinal MR only occurs in the three-dimensional limit and thereby permits the determination of a characteristic length scale set by the spatial inhomogeneity. We find that this fundamental inhomogeneity length can be as large as ten microns. Systematic measurements of the diagonal and off-diagonal components of the resistivity tensor in various sample geometries show clear evidence of the distorted current paths posited in theoretical simulations. We use a random resistor network model to fit the linear MR, and expand it from two to three dimensions to depict current distortions in the third (thickness) dimension. When compared directly to experiments on Ag$_{2pmdelta}$Se and Ag$_{2pmdelta}$Te, in magnetic fields up to 55 T, the model identifies conductivity fluctuations due to macroscopic inhomogeneities as the underlying physical mechanism. It also accounts reasonably quantitatively for the various components of the resistivity tensor observed in the experiments.
In this work, the magneto-resistance (MR) of ultra-thin WTe2/BN heterostructures far away from electron-hole equilibrium is measured. The change of MR of such devices is found to be determined largely by a single tunable parameter, i.e. the amount of imbalance between electrons and holes. We also found that the magnetoresistive behavior of ultra-thin WTe2 devices is well-captured by a two-fluid model. According to the model, the change of MR could be as large as 400,000%, the largest potential change of MR among all materials known, if the ultra-thin samples are tuned to neutrality when preserving the mobility of 167,000 cm2V-1s-1 observed in bulk samples. Our findings show the prospects of ultra-thin WTe2 as a variable magnetoresistance material in future applications such as magnetic field sensors, information storage and extraction devices, and galvanic isolators. The results also provide important insight into the electronic structure and the origin of the large MR in ultra-thin WTe2 samples.
The Weyl semimetal WTe2 and MoTe2 show great potential in generating large spin currents since they possess topologically-protected spin-polarized states and can carry a very large current density. In addition, the intrinsic noncentrosymmetry of WTe2 and MoTe2 endows with a unique property of crystal symmetry-controlled spin-orbit torques. An important question to be answered for developing spintronic devices is how spins relax in WTe2 and MoTe2. Here, we report a room-temperature spin relaxation time of 1.2 ns (0.4 ns) in WTe2 (MoTe2) thin film using the time-resolved Kerr rotation (TRKR). Based on ab initio calculation, we identify a mechanism of long-lived spin polarization resulting from a large spin splitting around the bottom of the conduction band, low electron-hole recombination rate and suppression of backscattering required by time-reversal and lattice symmetry operation. In addition, we find the spin polarization is firmly pinned along the strong internal out-of-plane magnetic field induced by large spin splitting. Our work provides an insight into the physical origin of long-lived spin polarization in Weyl semimetals which could be useful to manipulate spins for a long time at room temperature.