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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
- Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0HE, UK
- 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
Abstract
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.
- Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0HE, UK
- 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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