Giant nonlinear conduction and thyristor-like negative derivative resistance in BaIrO3 single crystals

TL;DR

This study reports on the synthesis and detailed electrical and magnetic characterization of BaIrO3 single crystals, revealing giant nonlinear conduction and negative differential resistance phenomena linked to its magnetic transitions.

Contribution

The paper presents the discovery of giant nonlinear conduction and thyristor-like negative differential resistance in BaIrO3, a novel electrical behavior in this material.

Findings

Giant nonlinear conduction observed below 30 K

Small current suppresses resistivity increase, inducing metallic behavior

Magnetization and resistivity anomalies at 180 K and 30 K

Abstract

We synthesized single-crystalline samples of monoclinic BaIrO3 using a molten flux method, and measured their magnetization, resistivity, Seebeck coefficient and nonlinear voltage-current characteristics. The magnetization rapidly increases below a ferromagnetic transition temperature TC of 180 K, where the resistivity concomitantly shows a hump-type anomaly, followed by a sharp increase below 30 K. The Seebeck coefficient suddenly increases below TC, and shows linear temperature dependence below 50 K. A most striking feature of this compound is that the anomalously giant nonlinear conduction is observed below 30 K, where a small current density of 20 A/cm2 dramatically suppresses the sharp increase in resistivity to induce a metallic conduction down to 4 K.