Comparative investigation of extremely high mobility in α- and crystals by electrical transport and Raman spectroscopy
Phys. Rev. B 114, 214303 – Published 13 October, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/xlmz-2cg1
Abstract
The microscopic origin of high carrier mobility in transition-metal diphosphides remains under debate, with proposed mechanisms including hydrodynamic electron flow and suppressed momentum relaxation associated with spin-momentum locking. provides a useful platform for addressing this issue because it crystallizes in two polymorphs: monoclinic , a topologically trivial semimetal, and orthorhombic , a type-II Weyl semimetal. Here, we grew high-quality α- and single crystals with residual-resistivity ratios of 3700 and 4200, respectively. Electrical transport measurements yield carrier mobilities of and at 5 K for α- and , corresponding to transport lifetimes of and s. Low-temperature resistivity analysis shows that the data are better described by residual impurity scattering together with a phonon-drag-related contribution than by simple electron-electron or electron-phonon forms. Raman spectra show linewidth broadening and weak Fano-type asymmetry in selected phonon modes, indicating mode-dependent electron-phonon coupling. Analysis of the electronic Raman response gives quantum quasiparticle lifetimes of and s at 5 K for α- and , yielding and 3698, respectively. To account for this large , we propose that two mechanisms may play crucial roles: spin-orbit coupling (SOC), which suppresses backscattering for points near band extrema, and orbital-momentum locking (OML), which restrains large-angle scattering for points away from band extrema. These results provide a comparative view of carrier scattering in the two phases of and suggest that SOC and OML are relevant to the high mobility in transition-metal diphosphides.
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
- Carrier dynamics
- Electrical properties
- Electron-phonon coupling
- Lattice dynamics
- Phonons
- Spin-orbit coupling
- Single crystal materials
- Weyl semimetal
- Crystal growth
- Electron-correlation calculations
- Energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy
- First-principles calculations
- Raman spectroscopy
- Transport techniques
- X-ray diffraction