Topological materials with broken inversion symmetry can give rise to nonreciprocal responses, such as the current rectification controlled by magnetic fields via magnetochiral anisotropy. Bulk nonreciprocal responses usually stem from relativistic corrections and are always very small. Here we report our discovery that ZrTe5 crystals in proximity to a topological quantum phase transition present gigantic magnetochiral anisotropy, which is the largest ever observed to date. We argue that a very low carrier density, inhomogeneities, and a torus-shaped Fermi surface induced by breaking of inversion symmetry in a Dirac material are central to explain this extraordinary property.
@article{arxiv.2011.03329,
title = {Gigantic magnetochiral anisotropy in the topological semimetal ZrTe5},
author = {Yongjian Wang and Henry F. Legg and Thomas Boemerich and Jinhong Park and Sebastian Biesenkamp and A. A. Taskin and Markus Braden and Achim Rosch and Yoichi Ando},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2011.03329},
year = {2022}
}
Comments
Final version to appear in Physical Review Letters; 26 pages total; 5 pages of main text with 3 figures, 21 pages of supplementary material with 15 figures and 2 tables