TY - JOUR
T1 - Extreme magnetoresistance and SdH oscillation in compensated semimetals of NbSb2 single crystals
AU - Guo, Lei
AU - Liu, Yu-Kuai
AU - Gao, Guan-Yin
AU - Huang, Ye-Yu
AU - Gao, Heng
AU - Chen, Lei
AU - Zhao, Weiyao
AU - Ren, Wei
AU - Li, Shi-Yan
AU - Li, Xiao-Guang
AU - Dong, Shuai
AU - Zheng, Ren-Kui
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51572278, 51502129, 51332007, and 51672171) and the National Basic Research Program of China (Grant Nos. 2016YFA0300103, 2015CB921201, and 2015CB921600). The Eastern Scholar Program from the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission, the Fok Ying Tung Education Foundation, the Special Program for Applied Research on Super Computation of the NSFC-Guangdong Joint Fund (the second phase), and the China Scholarship Council are also acknowledged.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Author(s).
PY - 2018/4/16
Y1 - 2018/4/16
N2 - Topological semimetals represent one of the most interesting classes of materials that continue to attract worldwide interest. Here, we report magnetotransport properties of MPn2-type (M = Nb, Ta; Pn = P, As, Sb) NbSb2 single-crystal semimetals with a centrosymmetric C12/m1 space group, paramagnetic ground state, and non-saturation parabolic-like magnetoresistance. The NbSb2 crystals show metallic conductivity down to 2 K and undergo a metal-to-insulator-like transition under a magnetic field B (B ≥ 4 T) and exhibit a resistivity plateau in the low-temperature region (T ≤ 10 K), where the value of resistivity strongly depends on the magnitude and direction of the magnetic field. Upon sweeping the magnetic field from 0 to 14.5 T in the transverse configuration at T = 1.5 K, the NbSb2 crystal shows a large positive magnetoresistance (4.2 × 103% at B = 14.5 T) with Shubnikov-de Haas (SdH) oscillation. Hall measurements reveal that both the carrier compensation between electrons and holes and the high mobility and large mean free path of carriers contribute to the large magnetoresistance. Fast Fourier transform analyses of angle-resolved SdH oscillation indicate that the Fermi surface of the NbSb2 crystal is quasi-two-dimensional with three-dimensional components. These findings, together with the theoretically calculated electronic band structure obtained within the framework of density functional theory, suggest that NbSb2 is a good candidate compensated semimetal for further theoretical and experimental investigation of this family of materials.
AB - Topological semimetals represent one of the most interesting classes of materials that continue to attract worldwide interest. Here, we report magnetotransport properties of MPn2-type (M = Nb, Ta; Pn = P, As, Sb) NbSb2 single-crystal semimetals with a centrosymmetric C12/m1 space group, paramagnetic ground state, and non-saturation parabolic-like magnetoresistance. The NbSb2 crystals show metallic conductivity down to 2 K and undergo a metal-to-insulator-like transition under a magnetic field B (B ≥ 4 T) and exhibit a resistivity plateau in the low-temperature region (T ≤ 10 K), where the value of resistivity strongly depends on the magnitude and direction of the magnetic field. Upon sweeping the magnetic field from 0 to 14.5 T in the transverse configuration at T = 1.5 K, the NbSb2 crystal shows a large positive magnetoresistance (4.2 × 103% at B = 14.5 T) with Shubnikov-de Haas (SdH) oscillation. Hall measurements reveal that both the carrier compensation between electrons and holes and the high mobility and large mean free path of carriers contribute to the large magnetoresistance. Fast Fourier transform analyses of angle-resolved SdH oscillation indicate that the Fermi surface of the NbSb2 crystal is quasi-two-dimensional with three-dimensional components. These findings, together with the theoretically calculated electronic band structure obtained within the framework of density functional theory, suggest that NbSb2 is a good candidate compensated semimetal for further theoretical and experimental investigation of this family of materials.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85045558744&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1063/1.5021637
DO - 10.1063/1.5021637
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85045558744
SN - 0021-8979
VL - 123
JO - Journal of Applied Physics
JF - Journal of Applied Physics
IS - 15
M1 - 155103
ER -