Signature of Strong Spin-Orbital Coupling in the Large Nonsaturating Magnetoresistance Material WTe2

J. Jiang, F. Tang, X. C. Pan, H. M. Liu, X. H. Niu, Y. X. Wang, D. F. Xu, H. F. Yang, B. P. Xie, F. Q. Song, P. Dudin, T. K. Kim, M. Hoesch, P. Kumar Das, I. Vobornik, X. G. Wan, and D. L. Feng
Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 166601 – Published 12 October 2015
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Abstract

We report the detailed electronic structure of WTe2 by high resolution angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. We resolved a rather complicated Fermi surface of WTe2. Specifically, there are in total nine Fermi pockets, including one hole pocket at the Brillouin zone center Γ, and two hole pockets and two electron pockets on each side of Γ along the ΓX direction. Remarkably, we have observed circular dichroism in our photoemission spectra, which suggests that the orbital angular momentum exhibits a rich texture at various sections of the Fermi surface. This is further confirmed by our density-functional-theory calculations, where the spin texture is qualitatively reproduced as the conjugate consequence of spin-orbital coupling. Since the spin texture would forbid backscatterings that are directly involved in the resistivity, our data suggest that the spin-orbit coupling and the related spin and orbital angular momentum textures may play an important role in the anomalously large magnetoresistance of WTe2. Furthermore, the large differences among spin textures calculated for magnetic fields along the in-plane and out-of-plane directions also provide a natural explanation of the large field-direction dependence on the magnetoresistance.

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  • Received 2 April 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.166601

© 2015 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

J. Jiang1,2, F. Tang3, X. C. Pan3, H. M. Liu3, X. H. Niu1,2, Y. X. Wang1,2, D. F. Xu1,2, H. F. Yang4, B. P. Xie1,2, F. Q. Song3, P. Dudin5, T. K. Kim5, M. Hoesch5, P. Kumar Das6,7, I. Vobornik6, X. G. Wan3,*, and D. L. Feng1,2,†

  • 1State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics, Department of Physics, and Advanced Materials Laboratory, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
  • 2Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China
  • 3National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, and College of Physics, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, People’s Republic of China
  • 4State Key Laboratory of Functional Materials for Informatics, Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology (SIMIT), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200050, China
  • 5Diamond Light Source, Harwell Campus, Didcot OX11 0DE, United Kingdom
  • 6CNR-IOM, TASC Laboratory AREA Science Park-Basovizza, 34149 Trieste, Italy
  • 7International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Strada Costiera 11, 34100 Trieste, Italy

  • *xgwan@nju.edu.cn
  • dlfeng@fudan.edu.cn

See Also

Temperature-Induced Lifshitz Transition in WTe2

Yun Wu, Na Hyun Jo, Masayuki Ochi, Lunan Huang, Daixiang Mou, Sergey L. Bud’ko, P. C. Canfield, Nandini Trivedi, Ryotaro Arita, and Adam Kaminski
Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 166602 (2015)

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Vol. 115, Iss. 16 — 16 October 2015

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