Giant negative magnetoresistance induced by the chiral anomaly in individual Cd3As2 nanowires

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 6; no. 1; p. 10137
• Main Authors: Li, Cai-Zhen, Wang, Li-Xian, Liu, Haiwen, Wang, Jian, Liao, Zhi-Min, Yu, Da-Peng
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 17.12.2015; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 639/301/119/1000/1016; 639/301/119/997; Humanities and Social Sciences; multidisciplinary; Science; Science (multidisciplinary)
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/ncomms10137

Dirac electronic materials beyond graphene and topological insulators have recently attracted considerable attention. Cd 3 As 2 is a Dirac semimetal with linear dispersion along all three momentum directions and can be viewed as a three-dimensional analogue of graphene. By breaking of either time-reversal symmetry or spatial inversion symmetry, the Dirac semimetal is believed to transform into a Weyl semimetal with an exotic chiral anomaly effect, however the experimental evidence of the chiral anomaly is still missing in Cd 3 As 2 . Here we show a large negative magnetoresistance with magnitude of −63% at 60 K and −11% at 300 K in individual Cd 3 As 2 nanowires. The negative magnetoresistance can be modulated by gate voltage and temperature through tuning the density of chiral states at the Fermi level and the inter-valley scatterings between Weyl nodes. The results give evidence of the chiral anomaly effect and are valuable for understanding the Weyl fermions in Dirac semimetals. Dirac semimetals possess an electronic dispersion relation which is linear in three dimensions, making them three-dimensional analogues of graphene. Here, the authors report large negative magnetoresistance in single-crystal Cd 3 As 2 nanowires, evidencing a sought-after chiral anomaly effect.