Materials and possible mechanisms of extremely large magnetoresistance: A review

Abstract

Magnetoresistance (MR) is a characteristic that the resistance of a substance changes with the external magnetic field, reflecting various physical origins and microstructures of the substance. A large MR, namely a huge response to a low external field, has always been a useful functional feature in industrial technology and a core goal pursued by physicists and materials scientists. Conventional large MR materials are mainly manganites, whose colossal MR (CMR) can be as high as -90%. The dominant mechanism is attributed to spin configuration aligned by the external field, which reduces magnetic scattering and thus resistance. In recent years, some new systems have shown an extremely large unsaturated MR (XMR). Unlike ordinary metals, the positive MR of these systems can reach 103-108% and is persistent under super high magnetic fields. The XMR materials are mainly metals or semimetals, distributed in high-mobility topological or non-topological systems, and some are magnetic, which suggests a wide range of application scenarios. Various mechanisms have been proposed for the potential physical origin of XMR, including electron-hole compensation, steep band, ultrahigh mobility, high residual resistance ratio, topological fermions, etc. It turns out that some mechanisms play a leading role in certain systems, while more are far from clearly defined. In addition, the researches on XMR are largely overlapped or closely correlated with other recently rising physics and materials researches, such as topological matters and two-dimensional (2D) materials, which makes elucidating the mechanism of XMR even more important. Moreover, the disclosed novel properties will lay a broad and solid foundation for the design and development of functional devices. In this review, we will discuss several aspects in the following order: ...

Topical Review, 60 pages, 29 figs, 4 tables

References in corpus (32)

• Electric Field Effect in Atomically Thin Carbon Films
• Quantum Spin Hall Insulator State in HgTe Quantum Wells
• Topological Insulators with Inversion Symmetry
• Titanic Magnetoresistance in WTe2
• Weyl semimetal phase in non-centrosymmetric transition metal monophosphides
• Quantum transport evidence for a three-dimensional Dirac semimetal phase in Cd3As2
• Linear magnetoresistance caused by mobility fluctuations in the n-doped Cd3As2
• Electronic structure basis for the titanic magnetoresistance in WTe${}_2$
• Gate-Tunable Negative Longitudinal Magnetoresistance in the Predicted Type-II Weyl Semimetal WTe2
• Anisotropic Magnetotransport and Exotic Longitudinal Linear Magnetoresistance in WTe2 Crystals
• Anisotropic giant magnetoresistance in NbSb2
• Magnetotransport of single crystalline NbAs
• Perfect charge compensation in WTe2 for the extraordinary magnetoresistance: From bulk to monolayer
• Extremely large magnetoresistance and Kohler's rule in PdSn4: a complete study of thermodynamic, transport and band structure properties
• Bulk crystal growth and electronic characterization of the 3D Dirac Semimetal Na3Bi
• Angle dependence of the orbital magnetoresistance in bismuth
• Direct evidence for charge compensation induced large magnetoresistance in thin WTe2
• Three-dimensional band structure of LaSb and CeSb:Absence of band inversion
• Origin of the Extremely Large Magnetoresistance in the Semimetal YSb
• Separation of Electron and Hole Dynamics in the Semimetal LaSb
• Magnetotransport properties of the topological nodal-line semimetal CaCdSn
• Linear and quadratic magnetoresistance in the semimetal SiP2
• Extremely large magnetoresistance from electron-hole compensation in the nodal loop semimetal ZrP${}_2$
• Observation of Open-Orbit Fermi Surface Topology in Extremely Large Magnetoresistance Semimetal MoAs${}_2$
• Effect of aging-induced disorder on the quantum transport properties of atomically thin WTe${}_2$
• Topological Dirac states in a layered telluride TaPdTe${}_5$ with quasi-one-dimensional PdTe${}_2$ chains
• Observation of charge density wave transition in TaSe3 mesowires
• Anisotropic and extreme magnetoresistance in the magnetic semimetal candidate Erbium monobismuthide
• Extremely large magnetoresistance induced by hidden three-dimensional Dirac bands in nonmagnetic semimetal InBi
• Nonsaturating large magnetoresistance in the high carrier density nonsymmorphic metal CrP
• Trivial to nontrivial topology transition in rare-earth pnictides with epitaxial strain
• SrPd, a candidate material with extremely large magnetoresistance