Extremely Large Magnetoresistance in the Nonmagnetic Metal PdCoO2

TL;DR

This paper reports an extremely large and anisotropic magnetoresistance in the nonmagnetic metal PdCoO2, attributed to orbital motion of carriers, revealing new insights into magnetotransport in simple Fermi surface metals.

Contribution

It demonstrates unprecedented magnetoresistance in PdCoO2 and highlights the role of orbital motion in nonmagnetic layered metals with simple Fermi surfaces.

Findings

Magnetoresistance reaches up to 35000% for certain field directions.

Temperature dependence of resistance becomes nonmetallic under specific magnetic fields.

Anisotropic destruction of interlayer coherence due to orbital motion of carriers.

Abstract

Extremely large magnetoresistance is realized in the nonmagnetic layered metal PdCoO2. In spite of a highly conducting metallic behavior with a simple quasi-two-dimensional hexagonal Fermi surface, the interlayer resistance reaches up to 35000% for the field along the [1-10] direction. Furthermore, the temperature dependence of the resistance becomes nonmetallic for this field direction, while it remains metallic for fields along the [110] direction. Such severe and anisotropic destruction of the interlayer coherence by a magnetic field on a simple Fermi surface is ascribable to orbital motion of carriers on the Fermi surface driven by the Lorentz force, but seems to have been largely overlooked until now.