Control of chiral orbital currents in a colossal magnetoresistance material

Colossal magnetoresistance (CMR) is an extraordinary enhancement of the electrical conductivity in the presence of a magnetic field. It is conventionally associated with a field-induced spin polarization that drastically reduces spin scattering and electric resistance. Ferrimagnetic Mn 3 Si 2 Te 6 i...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature (London) 2022-11, Vol.611 (7936), p.467-472
Main Authors: Zhang, Yu, Ni, Yifei, Zhao, Hengdi, Hakani, Sami, Ye, Feng, DeLong, Lance, Kimchi, Itamar, Cao, Gang
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
639/301/1005/1008
639/766/119/2795
639/766/119/995
639/766/119/997
Anisotropy
Colossal magnetoresistance
Electrical conductivity
Electrical resistivity
electronic properties and materials
Humanities and Social Sciences
information storage
Magnetic fields
magnetic properties and materials
Magnetoresistivity
MATERIALS SCIENCE
multidisciplinary
Phase transitions
phase transitions and critical phenomena
Polarization
Polarization (spin alignment)
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Colossal magnetoresistance (CMR) is an extraordinary enhancement of the electrical conductivity in the presence of a magnetic field. It is conventionally associated with a field-induced spin polarization that drastically reduces spin scattering and electric resistance. Ferrimagnetic Mn 3 Si 2 Te 6 is an intriguing exception to this rule: it exhibits a seven-order-of-magnitude reduction in ab plane resistivity that occurs only when a magnetic polarization is avoided 1 , 2 . Here, we report an exotic quantum state that is driven by ab plane chiral orbital currents (COC) flowing along edges of MnTe 6 octahedra. The c axis orbital moments of ab plane COC couple to the ferrimagnetic Mn spins to drastically increase the ab plane conductivity (CMR) when an external magnetic field is aligned along the magnetic hard c axis. Consequently, COC-driven CMR is highly susceptible to small direct currents exceeding a critical threshold, and can induce a time-dependent, bistable switching that mimics a first-order ‘melting transition’ that is a hallmark of the COC state. The demonstrated current-control of COC-enabled CMR offers a new paradigm for quantum technologies. Current-control of chiral orbital current-enabled colossal magnetoresistance offers a new paradigm for quantum technologies.
ISSN:0028-0836
1476-4687
DOI:10.1038/s41586-022-05262-3