Origin of the butterfly magnetoresistance in a Dirac nodal-line system

• Published in: Physical review. B 2019-09, Vol.100 (12)
• Main Authors: Chiu, Y.-C., Chen, K.-W., Schönemann, R., Quito, V. L., Sur, S., Zhou, Q., Graf, D., Kampert, E., Förster, T., Yang, K., McCandless, G. T., Chan, Julia Y., Baumbach, R. E., Johannes, M. D., Balicas, L.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY; MATERIALS SCIENCE
• ISSN: 2469-9950; 2469-9969

Here, we report a study on the magnetotransport properties and on the Fermi surfaces (FS) of ZrSi(Se,Te) semimetals. Density-functional theory (DFT) calculations, in absence of spin orbit coupling (SOC), reveal that both the Se and the Te compounds display Dirac nodal lines (DNL) close to the Fermi level εF at symmorphic and nonsymmorphic positions, respectively. We find that the geometry of their FSs agrees well with DFT predictions. ZrSiSe displays low residual resistivities, pronounced magnetoresistivity, high carrier mobilities, and a butterflylike angle-dependent magnetoresistivity (AMR), although its DNL is not protected against gap opening. As in Cd3As2, its transport lifetime is found to be 102 to 103 times larger than its quantum one. ZrSiTe, which possesses a protected DNL, displays conventional transport properties. Our evaluation indicates that both compounds most likely are topologically trivial. Nearly angle-independent effective masses with strong angle-dependent quantum lifetimes lead to the butterfly AMR in ZrSiSe.