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  • Letter
  • Open Access

Direct link between disorder and magnetoresistance in topological semimetals

Jocienne N. Nelson1,*, Ian A. Leahy1,*, Anthony D. Rice1, Chase Brooks2, Glenn Teeter1, Mark van Schilfgaarde1, Stephan Lany1, Brian Fluegel1, Minhyea Lee2 et al.

Kirstin Alberi1,†

  • 1National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, Colorado 80401, USA
  • 2Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA

  • *These authors contributed equally to this work.
  • †Author to whom all correspondence should be addressed: Kirstin.Alberi@nrel.gov
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Phys. Rev. B 107, L220206 – Published 29 June, 2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.107.L220206

Abstract

The extent to which disorder influences the properties of topological semimetals is relevant to the understanding of topological states and their use in practical applications. Using molecular beam epitaxy, we achieve systematic control of point defect concentrations in the prototypical Dirac semimetal Cd3As2 to gain insight into the role of disorder on electron transport behavior. Using the guiding center diffusion model for linear magnetoresistance, we extract point defect densities as a function of deposition conditions. We find that reducing cadmium defect concentrations by an order of magnitude results in an 2× increase in the magnetoresistance from 450% to 900%. This finding yields important information in the quest to identify the origin of linear magnetoresistance in a wider range of materials.

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Band energy dependence of defect formation in the topological semimetal Cd3As2

Chase Brooks, Mark van Schilfgaarde, Dimitar Pashov, Jocienne N. Nelson, Kirstin Alberi, Daniel S. Dessau, and Stephan Lany
Phys. Rev. B 107, 224110 (2023)

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Phys. Rev. B 107, L220206– Published 29 June, 2023
  • Received 21 June 2022
  • Revised 14 February 2023
  • Accepted 8 June 2023
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Open access publication funded by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Library, part of a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy.

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