Bilayer splitting versus Fermi-surface warping as an origin of slow oscillations of in-plane magnetoresistance in rare-earth tritellurides

TL;DR

This paper investigates the origin of slow oscillations in magnetoresistance in rare-earth tritellurides, concluding they stem from bilayer splitting rather than Fermi-surface warping, providing insights into interlayer interactions.

Contribution

The study distinguishes the origin of slow oscillations as due to bilayer splitting, not Fermi-surface warping, and quantifies the interlayer transfer integral in these materials.

Findings

Slow oscillations originate from bilayer splitting.

Interlayer transfer integral is approximately 1 meV.

Angular dependence supports bilayer splitting as the origin.

Abstract

Slow oscillations (SlO) of the in-plane magnetoresistance with a frequency less than 4 T are observed in the rare-earth tritellurides and proposed as an effective tool to explore the electronic structure in various strongly anisotropic quasi-two-dimensional compounds. Contrary to the usual Shubnikov-de-Haas oscillations, SlO originate not from small Fermi-surface pockets, but from the entanglement of close frequencies due to a finite interlayer transfer integral, either between the two Te planes forming a bilayer or between two adjacent bilayers. From the observed angular dependence of the frequency and the phase of SlO we argue that they originate from the bilayer splitting rather than from the Fermi-surface warping. The SlO frequency gives the value of the interlayer transfer integral $\approx 1$ meV for TbTe$_3$ and GdTe$_3$.