Fermi surface origin of the low-temperature magnetoresistance anomaly

TL;DR

This paper investigates the low-temperature magnetoresistance anomaly in various metals, revealing its origin in quantum transport across Fermi surface arcs and its relation to the Fermi surface topology and electron-hole compensation.

Contribution

It demonstrates that the MR anomaly in high-conductivity metals is governed by quantum transport across Fermi surface arcs, expanding understanding beyond low-carrier-density systems.

Findings

MR anomaly exists in Cr, Mo, and W at low temperatures.

Quantum transport across Fermi surface arcs influences MR behavior.

Large MR linked to carriers circling quantum orbits, analogous to quantum Hall effects.

Abstract

A magnetoresistance (MR) anomaly at low temperatures has been observed in a variety of systems, ranging from low-dimensional chalcogenides to spin and charge density wave (SDW/CDW) metals and, most recently, topological semimetals. In some systems parabolic magnetoresistance can rise to hundreds of thousands of times its low-temperature, zero-field value. While the origin of such a dramatic effect remains unresolved, these systems are often low-carrier-density compensated metals, and the physics is expected to be quasi-classical. Here we demonstrate that this MR anomaly in temperature also exists in high conductivity good metals with large Fermi surfaces, namely Cr, Mo, and W, for both linear and quadratic field-dependent regimes with their non-saturation attributed to open orbit and electron-hole compensation, respectively. We provide evidence that quantum transport across sharp Fermi surface arcs, but not necessarily the full cyclotron orbit, governs this low-temperature MR anomaly. In Cr, extremely sharp curvatures are induced by superposed lattice and SDW band structures. One observes an overlay of the temperature dependence of three phenomena: namely, MR at a constant high field, linear MR in the low-field limit, and Shubnikov-de Haas (SdH) oscillations of the lightest orbit. In Mo, the temperature dependence of low-T MR anomaly extends beyond those of its SdH oscillations but disappears at temperatures where Kohler's scaling reemerges. In the low-temperature and high-field limit, large magnetoresistance from carriers circling quantum orbits is the three-dimensional analogy to the zero-conductance state of carrier localization in the integer quantum Hall effect, especially with regard to the adverse effect of disorder.