Abstract
Magnetoresistance is the change in a material’s electrical resistance in response to an applied magnetic field. Materials with large magnetoresistance have found use as magnetic sensors1, in magnetic memory2, and in hard drives3 at room temperature, and their rarity has motivated many fundamental studies in materials physics at low temperatures4. Here we report the observation of an extremely large positive magnetoresistance at low temperatures in the non-magnetic layered transition-metal dichalcogenide WTe2: 452,700 per cent at 4.5 kelvins in a magnetic field of 14.7 teslas, and 13 million per cent at 0.53 kelvins in a magnetic field of 60 teslas. In contrast with other materials, there is no saturation of the magnetoresistance value even at very high applied fields. Determination of the origin and consequences of this effect, and the fabrication of thin films, nanostructures and devices based on the extremely large positive magnetoresistance of WTe2, will represent a significant new direction in the study of magnetoresistivity.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 51 print issues and online access
$199.00 per year
only $3.90 per issue
Rent or buy this article
Prices vary by article type
from$1.95
to$39.95
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Lenz, J. E. A review of magnetic sensors. Proc. IEEE 78, 973–989 (1990)
Moritomo, Y., Asamitsu, A., Kuwahara, H. & Tokura, Y. Giant magnetoresistance of manganese oxides with a layered perovskite structure. Nature 380, 141–144 (1996)
Daughton, J. GMR applications. J. Magn. Magn. Mater. 192, 334–342 (1999)
Urushibara, A. et al. Insulator–metal transition and giant magnetoresistance in La1−xSrxMnO3 . Phys. Rev. B 51, 14103–14109 (1995)
Egelhoff, W. F. et al. Magnetoresistance values exceeding 21% in symmetric spin valves. J. Appl. Phys. 78, 273–277 (1995)
Ramirez, A. P., Cava, R. J. & Krajewski, J. Colossal magnetoresistance in Cr-based chalcogenide spinels. Nature 386, 156–159 (1997)
Jin, S., McCormack, M., Tiefel, T. H. & Ramesh, R. Colossal magnetoresistance in LaCaMnO ferromagnetic thin films. J. Appl. Phys. 76, 6929–6933 (1994)
Yang, F. Y. et al. Large magnetoresistance of electrodeposited single-crystal bismuth thin films. Science 284, 1335–1337 (1999)
Mun, E. et al. Magnetic field effects on transport properties of PtSn4 . Phys. Rev. B 85, 035135 (2012)
Ishiwata, S. et al. Extremely high electron mobility in a phonon-glass semimetal. Nature Mater. 12, 512–517 (2013)
Solin, S. A., Thio, T., Hines, D. R. & Heremans, J. J. Enhanced room-temperature geometric magnetoresistance in inhomogeneous narrow-gap semiconductors. Science 289, 1530–1532 (2000)
Alers, P. B. & Webber, R. T. The magnetoresistance of bismuth crystals at low temperatures. Phys. Rev. 91, 1060–1065 (1953)
Brown, B. E. The crystal structures of WTe2 and high-temperature MoTe2 . Acta Crystallogr. 20, 268–274 (1966)
Li, Y. et al. MoS2 nanoparticles grown on graphene: an advanced catalyst for the hydrogen evolution reaction. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 133, 7296–7299 (2011)
Moncton, D. E., Axe, J. D. & DiSalvo, F. J. Neutron scattering study of the charge-density wave transitions in 2H-TaSe2 and 2H-NbSe2 . Phys. Rev. B 16, 801–819 (1977)
Morris, R. C., Coleman, R. V. & Bhandari, R. Superconductivity and magnetoresistance in NbSe2 . Phys. Rev. B 5, 895–901 (1972)
Rapoport, L. et al. Hollow nanoparticles of WS2 as potential solid-state lubricants. Nature 387, 791–793 (1997)
Rapoport, L., Fleischer, N. & Tenne, R. Applications of WS2 (MoS2) inorganic nanotubes and fullerene-like nanoparticles for solid lubrication and for structural nanocomposites. J. Mater. Chem. 15, 1782–1788 (2005)
Bates, J., Gruzalski, G., Dudney, N., Luck, C. & Yu, X. Rechargeable thin-film lithium batteries. Solid State Ion. 70, 619–628 (1994)
Ayari, A., Cobas, E., Ogundadegbe, O. & Fuhrer, M. S. Realization and electrical characterization of ultrathin crystals of layered transition-metal dichalcogenides. J. Appl. Phys. 101, 014507 (2007)
Radisavljevic, B., Radenovic, A., Brivio, J., Giacometti, V. & Kis, A. Single-layer MoS2 transistors. Nature Nanotechnol. 6, 147–150 (2011)
Kabashima, S. Electrical properties of tungsten-ditelluride WTe2 . J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 21, 945–948 (1966)
Augustin, J. et al. Electronic band structure of the layered compound Td-WTe2 . Phys. Rev. B 62, 10812–10823 (2000)
Revolinsky, E. & Beerntsen, D. Electrical properties of the MoTe2–WTe2 and MoSe2–WSe2 systems. J. Appl. Phys. 35, 2086–2089 (1964)
Pillo, T. et al. Photoemission of bands above the Fermi level: the excitonic insulator phase transition in 1T-TiSe2 . Phys. Rev. B 61, 16213–16222 (2000)
Du, X., Tsai, S.-W., Maslov, D. L. & Hebard, A. F. Metal-insulator-like behavior in semimetallic bismuth and graphite. Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 166601 (2005)
Fauqué, B., Vignolle, B., Proust, C., Issi, J.-P. & Behnia, K. Electronic instability in bismuth far beyond the quantum limit. New J. Phys. 11, 113012 (2009)
Kopelevich, Y. et al. Reentrant metallic behavior of graphite in the quantum limit. Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 156402 (2003)
Ekin, J. Experimental Techniques for Low-Temperature Measurements: Cryostat Design, Material Properties and Superconductor Critical-Current Testing (Oxford Univ. Press, 2006)
Jakub Jankowsi, S. E.-A. & Oszwaldowski, M. Hall sensors for extreme temperatures. Sensors 11, 876–885 (2011)
Di Salvo, F. J., Moncton, D. E. & Waszczak, J. V. Electronic properties and superlattice formation in the semimetal TiSe2 . Phys. Rev. B 14, 4321–4328 (1976)
Blaha, P., Schwarz, K., Madsen, G., Kvasnicka, D. & Luitz, J. WIEN2k, an Augmented Plane Wave + Local Orbitals Program for calculating Crystal Properties (Technische Univ. Wien, 2001)
Singh, D. J. & Nordström, L. Planewaves, Pseudopotentials, and the LAPW Method 2nd edn (Springer, 2006)
Acknowledgements
We thank T. Valla, I. Pletikosic, F. Balakirev, R. McDonald and J. Betts for discussions, and E. Tutuc for inquiring about WTe2. This research was supported by the Army Research Office, grants W911NF-12-1-0461 and W911NF-11-1-0379, and the NSF MRSEC Program Grant DMR-0819860. The National Magnet Laboratory is supported by the National Science Foundation Cooperative Agreement no. DMR-1157490, the State of Florida, and the US Department of Energy; this work was supported by the US Department of Energy’s Basic Energy Sciences (DOE BES) project ‘Science at 100 Tesla’. The electron microscopy study at Brookhaven National Laboratory was supported by the DOE BES, by the Materials Sciences and Engineering Division under contract DE-AC02-98CH10886, and through the use of the Center for Functional Nanomaterials.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
M.N.A. was the lead researcher. M.N.A. and S.F. grew crystals and measured resistivities with N.H. J.X., T.L. and M.H. measured the detailed resistivity behaviour. Q.D.G. and L.S. calculated the electronic structure. J.T. performed the electron microscopy characterization. N.P.O. and R.J.C. supervised the research. All authors contributed to writing the manuscript.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Extended data figures and tables
Extended Data Figure 1 Simulation of the resonance criterion for non-saturating MR in semimetals.
The MR is sharply peaked at a ratio of holes to electrons of 1:1, even when their mobilities are not equal, and the MR continues to increase to high applied fields with no saturation.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ali, M., Xiong, J., Flynn, S. et al. Large, non-saturating magnetoresistance in WTe2. Nature 514, 205–208 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13763
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13763
This article is cited by
-
Magnetoresistive-coupled transistor using the Weyl semimetal NbP
Nature Communications (2024)
-
Experimental observation of multiple topological nodal structure in LaSb2
Science China Physics, Mechanics & Astronomy (2024)
-
Two-dimensional heavy fermions in the van der Waals metal CeSiI
Nature (2024)
-
Low-temperature synthesis of colloidal few-layer WTe2 nanostructures for electrochemical hydrogen evolution
Discover Nano (2023)
-
Light control with Weyl semimetals
eLight (2023)
Comments
By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.