No Arabic abstract
We report extremely large positive magnetoresistance of 1.72 million percent in single crystal TaSb$_{2}$ at moderate conditions of 1.5 K and 15 T. The quadratic growth of magnetoresistance (MR $propto,B^{1.96}$) is not saturating up to 15 T, a manifestation of nearly perfect compensation with $<0.1%$ mismatch between electron and hole pockets in this semimetal. The compensation mechanism is confirmed by temperature-dependent MR, Hall and thermoelectric coefficients of Nernst and Seebeck, revealing two pronounced Fermi surface reconstruction processes without spontaneous symmetry breaking, textit{i.e.} Lifshitz transitions, at around 20 K and 60 K, respectively. Using quantum oscillations of magnetoresistance and magnetic susceptibility, supported by density-functional theory calculations, we determined that the main hole Fermi surface of TaSb$_{2}$ forms a unique shoulder structure along the $F-L$ line. The flat band top of this shoulder pocket is just a few meV above the Fermi level, leading to the observed topological phase transition at 20 K when the shoulder pocket disappears. Further increase in temperature pushes the Fermi level to the band top of the main hole pocket, induced the second Lifshitz transition at 60 K when hole pocket vanishes completely.
We report here the magneto-transport properties of the newly synthesized Heusler compound Cr2NiGa which crystallizes in a disordered cubic B2 structure belonging to Pm-3m space group. The sample is found to be paramagnetic down to 2 K with metallic character. On application of magnetic field, a significantly large increase in resistivity is observed which corresponds to magnetoresistance as high as 112% at 150 kOe of field at the lowest temperature. Most remarkably, the sample shows negative temperature coefficient of resistivity below about 50 K under the application of field gretare than or equal to 80 kOe, signifying a field-induced metal to `insulating transition. The observed magnetoresistance follows Kohlers rule below 20 K indicating the validity of the semiclassical model of electronic transport in metal with a single relaxation time. A multi-band model for electronic transport, originally proposed for semimetals, is found to be appropriate to describe the magneto-transport behavior of the sample.
Cubic spinel GeNi2O4 exhibits intriguing magnetic properties with two successive antiferromagnetic phase transitions (TN1 12.1 and TN2 11.4 K) with the absence of any structural transition. We have performed detailed heat capacity and magnetic measurements in different crystallographic orientations. A new magnetic phase in presence of magnetic field (H > 4 T) along the [111] direction is revealed, which is not observed when the magnetic field is applied along the [100] and [110] directions. High field neutron powder diffraction measurements confirm such a change in magnetic phase, which could be ascribed to a spin reorientation in the presence of magnetic field. A strong magnetic anisotropy and competing magnetic interactions play a crucial role on the complex magnetic behavior in this cubic system.
Negative magnetoresistance (NMR) induced by the Adler-Bell-Jackiw anomaly is regarded as the most prominent quantum signature of Weyl semimetals when electrical field $E$ is collinear with the external magnetic field $B$. In this article, we report universal NMR in nonmagnetic, centrosymmetric transition metal dipnictides MPn$_{2}$ (M=Nb and Ta; Pn=As and Sb), in which the existence of Weyl fermions can be explicitly excluded. Using temperature-dependent magnetoresistance, Hall and thermoelectric coefficients of Nernst and Seebeck effects, we determine that the emergence of the NMR phenomena in MPn$_{2}$ is coincident with a Lifshitz transition, corresponding to the formation of unique electron-hole-electron ($e$-$h$-$e$) pockets along the $I-L-I$ direction. First-principles calculations reveal that, along the $I-L-I$ line, the $d_{xy}$ and $d_{x^{2}-y^{2}}$ orbitals of the transition metal form tilted nodal rings of band crossing well below the Fermi level. Strong spin-orbital coupling gaps all the crossing points and creates the characteristic $e$-$h$-$e$ structure, making MPn$_{2}$ a topological semimetal with $mathbb{Z}_2$ indices of [0;(111)]. By excluding the weak localization contribution of the bulk states, we conclude that the universal NMR in MPn$_{2}$ may have an exotic origin in topological surface states, which appears in pairs with opposite spin-momentum locking on nontrivial surfaces.
An extreme magnetoresistance (XMR) has recently been observed in several non-magnetic semimetals. Increasing experimental and theoretical evidence indicates that the XMR can be driven by either topological protection or electron-hole compensation. Here, by investigating the electronic structure of a XMR material, YSb, we present spectroscopic evidence for a special case which lacks topological protection and perfect electron-hole compensation. Further investigations reveal that a cooperative action of a substantial difference between electron and hole mobility and a moderate carrier compensation might contribute to the XMR in YSb.
The newly discovered topological Dirac semimetals host the possibilities of various topological phase transitions through the control of spin-orbit coupling as well as symmetries and dimensionalities. Here, we report a magnetotransport study of high-mobility (Cd1-xZnx)3As2 films, where the topological Dirac semimetal phase can be turned into a trivial insulator via chemical substitution. By high-field measurements with a Hall-bar geometry, magnetoresistance components ascribed to the chiral charge pumping have been distinguished from other extrinsic effects. The negative magnetoresistance exhibits a clear suppression upon Zn doping, reflecting decreasing Berry curvature of the band structure as the topological phase transition is induced by reducing the spin-orbit coupling.