Giant negative magnetoresistance induced by the chiral anomaly in individual Cd3As2 nanowires

TL;DR

This study reports the first observation of chiral anomaly-induced negative magnetoresistance in individual Cd3As2 nanowires, providing experimental evidence for exotic topological effects in this Dirac semimetal.

Contribution

It presents the experimental detection of negative magnetoresistance caused by the chiral anomaly in Cd3As2 nanowires, a key step in understanding topological physics in low-dimensional systems.

Findings

Negative MR of -63% at 60 K and -11% at 300 K observed.

Critical magnetic field increases with temperature.

Evidence supports the chiral magnetic effect in Cd3As2 nanowires.

Abstract

Cd3As2 is a newly booming Dirac semimetal with linear dispersion along all three momentum directions and can be viewed as 3D analog of graphene. As breaking of either time reversal symmetry or spatial inversion symmetry, the Dirac semimetal is believed to transform into Weyl semimetal with exotic chiral anomaly effect, while the experimental evidence of the chiral anomaly is still missing in Cd3As2. Here we report the magneto-transport properties of individual Cd3As2 nanowires. Large negative magnetoresistance (MR) with magnitude of -63% at 60 K and -11% at 300 K are observed when the magnetic field is parallel with the electric field direction, giving the evidence of the chiral magnetic effect in Cd3As2 nanowires. In addition, the critical magnetic field BC, where there is an extremum of the negative MR, increases with increasing temperature. As the first observation of chiral anomaly induced negative MR in Cd3As2 nanowires, it may offer valuable insights for low dimensional physics in Dirac semimetals.