New mechanism of negative magnetoresistivity discovered

Magnetoresistivity has been applied to many different devices such as hard disks that take advantage of magnetism. Active research is conducted in this field including a search for new materials exhibiting strong magnetoresistance. Negative magnetoresistivity has been observed in magnetic materials and extrinsic semiconductors. However, when a magnetic field is applied to non-magnetic, highly conductive materials (metals with abundant conduction electrons), resistance increases due to increased collisions among conduction electrons in the materials (positive magnetoresistivity). Accordingly, strong negative magnetoresistance had not been observed in these materials.

The research group observed negative magnetoresistivity in PdCoO₂, a non-magnetic and conductive material. This material has a layered structure including two-dimensional palladium layers which make the material highly conductive like other metals. In addition, due to lack of magnetism, it had been viewed as an ordinary conductor incapable of exerting negative magnetoresistivity. However, when a magnetic field was applied to the palladium layers in a direction perpendicular to their conduction planes, the research group observed negative magnetoresistive effects in the form of a dramatic increase in conductivity (and a decrease in resistance) along the direction of the magnetic field. The group also identified the mechanism causing these effects by analyzing the electronic state in the magnetic field.

Furthermore, the research group observed similar magnetoresistive effects in platinum cobalt oxide, which is related to palladium cobalt oxide, and strontium-ruthenium oxide, another conductive oxide with a layered structure. These experimental results indicate that negative magnetoresistivity is a universal phenomenon among non-magnetic and conductive materials. In addition to being very interesting from the viewpoint of basic research, these results may also facilitate the formulation of new guidelines in applied fields such as the development of device sensors and the exploration of materials that exert magnetoresistivity through the same mechanism discovered in this study.

A part of this study was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science's Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research on the innovative area of "Topological materials science."