2015/03/12 by Orest Pavlosiuk, D. Kaczorowski, Dariusz Kaczorowski +1 · 95 citations
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Condensed matter physics #Dirac fermion #Electrical resistivity and conductivity #Fermion #Geometric phase #Heusler alloys: electronic and magnetic properties #Magnetic field #Magnetoresistance #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Rare-earth and actinide compounds #Superconductivity #Topological Materials and Phenomena #Topology (electrical circuits) #cond-mat.mtrl-sci #cond-mat.supr-con
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/srep09158
published in Scientific Reports 5(1), 9158 (Nature Portfolio) · accepted for publication in Scientific Reports
arxiv created 2015/03/12 · openalex publication_date 2015/03/17 · arxiv updated 2015/03/19 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We present electronic transport and magnetic properties of single crystals of semimetallic half-Heusler phase LuPdBi, having theoretically predicted band inversion requisite for nontrivial topological properties. The compound exhibits superconductivity below a critical temperature Tc = 1.8 K, with a zero-temperature upper critical field Bc2 ≈ 2.3 T. Although superconducting state is clearly reflected in the electrical resistivity and magnetic susceptibility data, no corresponding anomaly can be seen in the specific heat. Temperature dependence of the electrical resistivity suggests existence of two parallel conduction channels: metallic and semiconducting, with the latter making negligible contribution at low temperatures. The magnetoresistance is huge and clearly shows a weak antilocalization effect in small magnetic fields. Above about 1.5 T, the magnetoresistance becomes linear and does not saturate in fields up to 9 T. The linear magnetoresistance is observed up to room temperature. Below 10 K, it is accompanied by Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations. Their analysis reveals charge carriers with effective mass of 0.06 me and a Berry phase very close to π, expected for Dirac-fermion surface states, thus corroborating topological nature of the material.