Direct evidence of electron-hole compensation for extreme magnetoresistance in topologically trivial YBi

Shaozhu Xiao, Yinxiang Li, Yong Li, Xiufu Yang, Shiju Zhang, Wei Liu, Xianxin Wu, Bin Li, Masashi Arita, Kenya Shimada, Youguo Shi, and Shaolong He

Phys. Rev. B 103, 115119 – Published 12 March 2021

Abstract

The prediction of topological states in rare-earth monopnictide compounds has attracted renewed interest. Extreme magnetoresistance (XMR) has also been observed in several nonmagnetic rare-earth monopnictide compounds. The origin of XMR in these compounds could be attributed to several mechanisms, such as topologically nontrivial electronic structures and electron-hole carrier balance. YBi is a typical rare-earth monopnictide exhibiting XMR and is expected to have a nontrivial electronic structure. In this work, we perform a direct investigation of the electronic structure of YBi by combining angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and theoretical calculations. Our results show that YBi is topologically trivial without the expected band inversion, and they rule out the topological effect as the cause of XMR in YBi. Furthermore, we directly observed nearly perfect electron-hole compensation in the electronic structure of YBi, which could be the primary mechanism accounting for the XMR.

Received 17 November 2020
Accepted 4 February 2021

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.103.115119

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Electronic structure Magnetoresistance Topological materials

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied Physics

Authors & Affiliations

Shaozhu Xiao^1,*, Yinxiang Li^2,*, Yong Li^3,*, Xiufu Yang^1,4,*, Shiju Zhang¹, Wei Liu ¹, Xianxin Wu⁵, Bin Li ^6,7, Masashi Arita⁸, Kenya Shimada⁸, Youguo Shi^3,†, and Shaolong He^1,9,‡

¹Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, Zhejiang 315201, China
²Tin Ka-Ping College of Science, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China
³Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
⁴College of Materials Science and Opto-Electronic Technology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
⁵Max-Planck-Institut für Festkörperforschung, Heisenbergstrasse 1, D-70569 Stuttgart, Germany
⁶New Energy Technology Engineering Laboratory of Jiangsu Province and School of Science, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing 210023, China
⁷National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China
⁸Hiroshima Synchrotron Radiation Center, Hiroshima University, Higashi-Hiroshima, Hiroshima 739-0046, Japan
⁹Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100049 Beijing, China

^*These authors contributed equally to this work.
^†ygshi@iphy.ac.cn
^‡shaolonghe@nimte.ac.cn

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Vol. 103, Iss. 11 — 15 March 2021

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Images

Figure 1
(a) Schematic crystal structure of YBi. (b) XRD $θ - 2 θ$ pattern on the cleaved surface of YBi after ARPES measurements. Inset: energy dispersive x-ray spectrum of YBi. (c) Three-dimensional (3D) bulk Brillouin zone of YBi and the projected (001) surface Brillouin zone. Three inequivalent bulk $X$ points are labeled as $X_{1}, X_{2}$ , and $X_{3}$ . $X_{1}$ and $X_{2}$ are projected onto the surface $\bar{M}$ point, while $Γ$ and $X_{3}$ are projected onto the surface $\bar{Γ}$ point. (d) Fermi surface of YBi measured by ARPES using photon energy $h ν = 25 eV$ . Yellow dashed lines represent the 2D surface Brillouin zone. (e) Calculated 3D Fermi surface of YBi in the first Brillouin zone. (f) Projected Fermi surface on the (001) surface obtained by calculation. Yellow dashed lines represent the surface Brillouin zone. The three hole pockets around the $\bar{Γ}$ point are projected from the $Γ$ point (red and blue pockets) and the $X_{3}$ point (black pocket), and the two electron pockets around the $\bar{M}$ point are projected from $X_{1}$ points (light green pocket) and $X_{2}$ points (dark green pocket).
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Figure 2
(a)–(l) Band dispersions of YBi along the $\bar{Γ} − \bar{M}$ direction measured by ARPES with various photon energies as labeled. (m) Projected bulk band structures of YBi on the (001) surface obtained by calculation. The red (blue) curves indicate the band dispersions on the $k_{z} = 0$ ( $k_{z} = π$ ) plane.
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Figure 3
(a) Band structures of YBi along the $\bar{M} − \bar{Γ} − \bar{M}$ direction [gray line labeled cut 1 in Fig. 1] measured by ARPES with a photon energy of 25 eV. The dashed curves are the calculated bands. (b) Same as (a), but along $\bar{Γ} − \bar{M} − \bar{Γ}$ [gray line labeled cut 2 in Fig. 1]. (c) Second derivative image of (a) with respect to the momentum. (d) Same as (b), but without superimposing the calculated bands in order not to cover the details of the ARPES spectrum. (e) The band structures of YBi along high-symmetry directions calculated by the MBJ method. (f) Comparison of the band structures of YBi calculated by the MBJ method and PBE method.
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Figure 4
(a) Experimental setup of the polarization-dependent ARPES measurement. The electric field direction of the $p$ ( $s$ ) incident photons is parallel (perpendicular) to the mirror plane defined by the analyzer slit and the sample surface normal, that is, the $x z$ plane. (b) Band structures of YBi along $\bar{M} − \bar{Γ} − \bar{M}$ measured by $p$ -polarized photons. (c) Same as (b), but measured by $s$ -polarized photons. (d)–(k) Calculated band structures of YBi with projections on different orbitals as labeled. The thickness of the curves represents the weight (or the contribution) of the corresponding orbital.
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Figure 5
Calculated surface state spectrum of the YBi (001) surface. (a) The spectrum consists of contributions from both the bulk bands projection and the surface bands. (b) The spectrum consists of only the projection of bulk bands. (c) The spectrum consists of only the surface bands.
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