IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v8y2017i1d10.1038_ncomms15545.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Gigantic negative magnetoresistance in the bulk of a disordered topological insulator

Author

Listed:
  • Oliver Breunig

    (Physics Institute II, University of Cologne)

  • Zhiwei Wang

    (Physics Institute II, University of Cologne)

  • A A Taskin

    (Physics Institute II, University of Cologne)

  • Jonathan Lux

    (Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Cologne)

  • Achim Rosch

    (Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Cologne)

  • Yoichi Ando

    (Physics Institute II, University of Cologne)

Abstract

With the recent discovery of Weyl semimetals, the phenomenon of negative magnetoresistance (MR) is attracting renewed interest. Large negative MR is usually related to magnetism, but the chiral anomaly in Weyl semimetals is a rare exception. Here we report a mechanism for large negative MR which is also unrelated to magnetism but is related to disorder. In the nearly bulk-insulating topological insulator TlBi0.15Sb0.85Te2, we observed gigantic negative MR reaching 98% in 14 T at 10 K, which is unprecedented in a nonmagnetic system. Supported by numerical simulations, we argue that this phenomenon is likely due to the Zeeman effect on a barely percolating current path formed in the disordered bulk. Since disorder can also lead to non-saturating linear MR in Ag2+δSe, the present finding suggests that disorder engineering in narrow-gap systems is useful for realizing gigantic MR in both positive and negative directions.

Suggested Citation

  • Oliver Breunig & Zhiwei Wang & A A Taskin & Jonathan Lux & Achim Rosch & Yoichi Ando, 2017. "Gigantic negative magnetoresistance in the bulk of a disordered topological insulator," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 8(1), pages 1-7, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:8:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms15545
    DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15545
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15545
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/ncomms15545?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:8:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms15545. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.