Gigantic negative magnetoresistance in the bulk of a disordered topological insulator

Oliver Breunig, Zhiwei Wang, A A Taskin, Jonathan Lux, Achim Rosch and Yoichi Ando ()
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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

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: 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.

Date: 2017
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15545

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