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Letters to Nature

Nature 426, 162-165 (13 November 2003) | doi:10.1038/nature02073; Received 17 July 2003; Accepted 16 September 2003

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Non-saturating magnetoresistance in heavily disordered semiconductors

M. M. Parish1 & P. B. Littlewood1,2

  1. Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0HE, UK
  2. National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Pulsed Field Facility, LANL, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA

Correspondence to: M. M. Parish1 Email: mmp24@cam.ac.uk

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The resistance of a homogeneous semiconductor increases quadratically with magnetic field at low fields and, except in very special cases, saturates at fields much larger than the inverse of the carrier mobility, a number typically of the order of 1 T (refs 1, 2). A surprising exception to this behaviour has recently been observed in doped silver chalcogenides3, 4, 5, which exhibit an anomalously large, quasi-linear magnetoresistive response that extends down to low fields and survives, even at extreme fields of 55 T and beyond. Here we present a simple model of a macroscopically disordered and strongly inhomogeneous semiconductor that exhibits a similar non-saturating magnetoresistance. In addition to providing a possible explanation for the behaviour of doped silver chalcogenides, our model suggests potential routes for the construction of magnetic field sensors with a large, controllable and linear response.

  1. Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0HE, UK
  2. National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Pulsed Field Facility, LANL, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA

Correspondence to: M. M. Parish1 Email: mmp24@cam.ac.uk