In addition to the weak antilocalization cusp observed in the magnetoresistance (MR) of topological insulators at low temperatures and low magnetic fields, we find that the high-field MR in Bi2Te2Se is linear in field. At fields up to B=14T the slope of this linear-like MR is nearly independent of temperature over the range T=7 to 150K. We find that the linear MR arises from the competition between a logarithmic phase coherence component and a quadratic component. The quantum phase coherence dominates up to high temperatures, where the coherence length remains longer than the mean free path of electrons.
We predict a magnetoresistance induced by the interfacial Rashba spin-orbit coupling in normal metal|ferromagnetic insulator bilayer. It depends on the angle between current and magnetization directions identically to the "spin Hall magnetoresistance" mechanism caused by a combined action of spin Hall and inverse spin Hall effects. Due to the identical phenomenology it is not obvious whether the magnetoresistance reported by Nakayama et al. is a bulk metal or interface effect. The interfacial Rashba induced magnetoresistance may be distinguished from the bulk metal spin Hall magnetoresistance …
We study spin and charge diffusion in metallic-ferromagnet/topological-insulator junctions. The coupled diffusion equations are derived perturbatively with respect to the strength of the interlayer tunneling. We calculate spin accumulation in the ferromagnet and junction magnetoresistance associated with a current bias along the interface.
The theory of magnetoresistance of the edge state of a two-dimensional topological insulator is developed. The magnetic field violates the time-reversal invariance. Magnetoresistance arises due to the energy gap opened by a magnetic field parallel to the sample surface. The combined action of impurities and the magnetic field causes backscattering of edge electrons. Although impurities are necessary for scattering, sufficiently strong interaction with impurities leads to the suppression of backscattering.
Absence of backscattering and occurrence of weak anti-localization are two characteristic features of topological insulators. We find that the introduction of defects results in the appearance of a negative contribution to magnetoresistance in the topological insulator BiSbTeSe2, at temperatures below 50 K. Our analysis shows that the negative magnetoresistance originates from an increase in the density of defect states created by introduction of disorder, which leaves the surface states unaffected. We find a decrease in the magnitude of the negative magnetoresistance contribution with increas…
Topological insulator is composed of an insulating bulk state and time reversal symmetry protected two-dimensional surface states. One of the characteristics of the surface states is the locking between electron momentum and spin orientation. Here, we report a novel in-plane anisotropic magnetoresistance in topological insulator Bi1.5Sb0.5Te1.8Se1.2/CoFe heterostructures. To explain the novel effect, we propose that the Bi1.5Sb0.5Te1.8Se1.2/CoFe heterostructure forms a spin-valve or Giant magnetoresistance device due to spin-momentum locking. The novel in-plane anisotropic magnetoresistance ca…
We report magnetoresistance for current flow through iron/topological insulator (Fe/TI) and Fe/evaporated-oxide/TI contacts when a magnetic field is used to initially orient the magnetic alignment of the incorporated ferromagnetic Fe bar, at temperatures ranging from 100 K to room temperature. This magnetoresistance is associated with the relative orientation of the Fe bar magnetization and spin-polarization of electrons moving on the surface of the TI with helical spin-momentum locking. The magnitude of the observed magnetoresistance is relatively large compared to that observed in prior work…
Bilinear magnetoresistance is a nonlinear transport phenomenon that scales linearly with the electric and magnetic fields, and appears in nonmagnetic systems with strong spin-orbit coupling, such as topological insulators (TIs). Using the semiclassical Boltzmann theory and generalized relaxation time approximation, we consider in detail the bilinear magnetoresistance in an effective model describing surface states of three-dimensional topological insulators. We show that the presence of magnetic impurities remarkably modifies the BMR signal. In general, scattering on magnetic impurities reduce…
We reveal the giant magnetoresistance induced by the spin-polarized current in the ferromagnet (F_1)/topological insulator (TI)/ferromagnet (F_2) junction, where two ferromagnets are deposited on the diffusive surface of the TI. We can increase and reduce the value of the giant magnetoresistance by tuning the spin-polarized current, which is controlled by the magnetization configurations. The property is intuitively understood by the non-equilibrium spin-polarized current, which plays the role of an effective electrochemical potential on the surface of the TI.
We report an electric field-induced in-plane magnetoresistance of an atomically flat paramagnetic insulator|platinum (Pt) interface at low temperatures with an ionic liquid gate. Transport experiments as a function of applied magnetic field strength and direction obey the spin Hall magnetoresistance phenomenology with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. Our results establish the utility of ionic gating as an alternative method to control spintronic devices without using ferromagnets.
We study the temperature dependence of spin Hall magnetoresistance (SMR) in antiferromagnetic insulator (AFI)/metal bilayer systems. We calculate the amplitude of the SMR signal by using a quantum Monte Carlo simulation and examine how the SMR depends on the amplitude of the spin, thickness of the AFI layer, and randomness of the exchange interactions. Our results for simple quantum spin models provide a useful starting point for understanding SMR measurements on atomic layers of magnetic compounds.
Thanks to its unique symmetry, the unidirectional spin Hall and Rashba-Edelstein magnetoresistance (USRMR) is of great fundamental and practical interest, particularly in the context of reading magnetization states in two-terminal spin-orbit torque switching memory and logic devices. Recent studies show that topological insulators could improve USRMR amplitude. However, the topological insulator device configurations studied so far in this context, namely ferromagnetic metal/topological insulator bilayers and magnetically doped topological insulators, suffer from current shunting by the metall…
The large spin orbit coupling in topological insulators results in helical spin-textured Dirac surface states that are attractive for topological spintronics. These states generate an efficient spin-orbit torque on proximal magnetic moments at room temperature. However, memory or logic spin devices based upon such switching require a non-optimal three terminal geometry, with two terminals for the writing current and one for reading the state of the device. An alternative two terminal device geometry is now possible by exploiting the recent discovery of a unidirectional spin Hall magnetoresista…
We theoretically investigate tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) devices, which are probing the spin-momentum coupled nature of surface states of the three-dimensional topological insulator Bi$_{2}$Se$_{3}$. Theoretical calculations are performed based on a realistic tight-binding model for Bi$_{2}$Se$_{3}$. We study both three dimensional devices, which exploit the surface states of Bi$_{2}$Se$_{3}$, as well as two-dimensional devices, which exploit the edge states of thin Bi$_{2}$Se$_{3}$ strips. We demonstrate that the material properties of Bi$_{2}$Se$_{3}$ allow a TMR ratio at room temperat…
We investigate spin-charge conversion phenomena in hybrid structures of topological insulator (TI) thin films and magnetic insulators. We find an anisotropic inverse spin-galvanic effect (ISGE) that yields a highly tunable spin-orbit torque (SOT). Concentrating on the quasiballistic limit, we also predict a giant anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR) at low dopings. These effects, which have no counterparts in thick TIs, depend on the simultaneous presence of the hybridization between the surface states and the in-plane magnetization. Both the ISGE and AMR exhibit a strong dependence on the magn…
An intriguing phenomenon in topological semimetals and topological insulators is the negative magnetoresistance (MR) observed when a magnetic field is applied along the current direction. A prevailing understanding to the negative MR in topological semimetals is the chiral anomaly, which, however, is not well defined in topological insulators. We calculate the MR of a three-dimensional topological insulator, by using the semiclassical equations of motion, in which the Berry curvature explicitly induces an anomalous velocity and orbital moment. Our theoretical results are in quantitative agreem…
We present a study of the proximity effect between a ferromagnet and a paramagnetic metal of varying disorder. Thin beryllium films are deposited onto a 5 nm-thick layer of the ferromagnetic insulator EuS. This bilayer arrangement induces an exchange field, $H_{ex}$, of a few tesla in low resistance Be films with sheet resistance $R\ll R_Q$, where $R_Q=h/e^2$ is the quantum resistance. We show that $H_{ex}$ survives in very high resistance films and, in fact, appears to be relatively insensitive to the Be disorder. We exploit this fact to produce a giant low-field magnetoresistance in the corr…
Electrical resistivities can be different for charge currents travelling parallel or perpendicular to the magnetization in magnetically ordered conductors or semiconductors, resulting in the well-known planar Hall effect and anisotropic magnetoresistance. Here, we study the analogous anisotropic magnetotransport behavior for magnons in a magnetic insulator Y$_{3}$Fe$_{5}$O$_{12}$. Electrical and thermal magnon injection, and electrical detection methods are used at room temperature with transverse and longitudinal geometries to measure the magnon planar Hall effect and anisotropic magnetoresis…
A new mechanism of bi-linear magnetoresistance (BMR) is studied theoretically within the minimal model describing surface electronic states in topological insulators (TIs). The BMR appears as a consequence of the second-order response to electric field, and depends linearly on both electric field (current) and magnetic field. The mechanism is based on the interplay of current-induced spin polarization and scattering processes due to peculiar spin-orbit defects. The proposed mechanism is compared to that based on a Fermi surface warping, and is shown to be dominant at lower Fermi energies. We p…
We investigate the electrical and magneto-transport properties of Pt-C granular metals prepared by focused-electron-beam induced deposition. In particular, we consider samples close to the metal-insulator-transition obtained from as-grown deposits by means of a low- energy electron irradiation treatment. The temperature dependence of the conductivity shows a lnT behavior with a transition to square root of T at low temperature, as expected for systems in the strong-coupling tunneling regime. The magnetoresistance is positive and is described within the wave-function shrinkage model, normally u…
We experimentally investigate and quantitatively analyze the spin Hall magnetoresistance effect in ferromagnetic insulator/platinum and ferromagnetic insulator/nonferromagnetic metal/platinum hybrid structures. For the ferromagnetic insulator we use either yttrium iron garnet, nickel ferrite or magnetite and for the nonferromagnet copper or gold. The spin Hall magnetoresistance effect is theoretically ascribed to the combined action of spin Hall and inverse spin Hall effect in the platinum metal top layer. It therefore should characteristically depend upon the orientation of the magnetization …
We report that the finite thickness of three-dimensional topological insulator (TI) thin films produces an observable magnetoresistance (MR) in phase coherent transport in parallel magnetic fields. The MR data of Bi2Se3 and (Bi,Sb)2Te3 thin films are compared with existing theoretical models of parallel field magnetotransport. We conclude that the TI thin films bring parallel field transport into a unique regime in which the coupling of surface states to bulk and to opposite surfaces is indispensable for understanding the observed MR. The β parameter extracted from parallel field MR can in pri…
We present a theory of the spin Hall magnetoresistance of metals in contact with magnetic insulators. We express the spin-mixing conductances, which govern the phenomenology of the effect, in terms of the microscopic parameters of the interface and the spin-spin correlation functions of the local moments on the surface of the magnetic insulator. The magnetic field and temperature dependence of the spin-mixing conductances leads to a rich behaviour of the resistance due to an interplay between the Hanle effect and spin mixing at the interface. Our theory provides a useful tool for understanding…
In an ideal topological insulator, the helical spin structure of surface electrons suppresses backscattering and thus can enhance surface conductivity. We investigate the effect of perpendicular magnetic field on the spin structure of electrons at the Fermi energy and calculate a magnetic-field dependent topological enhancement factor for different disorder potentials, ranging from short-range disorder to screened Coulomb potential. Within the Boltzmann approximation, the topological enhancement factor reaches its maximum value of 4 for a short-range disorder at zero magnetic field and approac…
When a three-dimensional (3D) ferromagnetic topological insulator thin film is magnetized out-of-plane, conduction ideally occurs through dissipationless, one-dimensional (1D) chiral states that are characterized by a quantized, zero-field Hall conductance. The recent realization of this phenomenon - the quantum anomalous Hall effect - provides a conceptually new platform for studies of edge-state transport, distinct from the more extensively studied integer and fractional quantum Hall effects that arise from Landau level formation. An important question arises in this context: how do these 1D…
Though the Fermi surface of surface states of a 3D topological insulator (TI) has zero magnetization, an arbitrary segment of the full Fermi surface has a unique magnetic moment consistent with the type of spin-momentum locking in hand. We propose a three-terminal set up, which directly couples to the magnetization of a chosen segment of a Fermi surface hence leading to a finite tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) response of the nonmagnetic TI surface states, when coupled to spin polarized STM probe. This multiterminal TMR not only provides a unique signature of spin-momentum locking for a pristin…
Among the potential applications of topological insulators, we investigate theoretically the effect of coexistence of proximity-induced ferromagnetism and superconductivity on the surface states of 3-dimensional topological insulator, where the superconducting electron-hole excitations can be significantly affected by the magnetization of ferromagnetic order. We find that, Majorana mode energy, as a verified feature of TI F/S structure, along the interface sensitively depends on the magnitude of magnetization $m_{zfs}$ in FS region, while its slope in perpendicular incidence presents steep and…
In addition to the topologically protected linear dispersion, a band-bending-confined two-dimensional electron gas with tunable Rashba spin-splitting (RSS) was found to coexist with the topological surface states on the surface of topological insulators (TIs). Here, we report the observation of large bilinear magnetoresistance (BMR) in Bi2Se3 films decorated with transition metal atoms. The magnitude of the BMR sensitively depends on the type and amount of atoms deposited, with a maximum achieved value close to those of strong Rashba semiconductors. Our first-principles calculations reproduce …
Weak antilocalization (WAL) and linear magnetoresistance (LMR) are two most commonly observed magnetoresistance (MR) phenomena in topological insulators (TIs) and often attributed to the Dirac topological surface states (TSS). However, ambiguities exist because these phenomena could also come from bulk states (often carrying significant conduction in many TIs) and are observable even in non-TI materials. Here, we demonstrate back-gated ambipolar TI field-effect transistors in (Bi0.04Sb0.96)2Te3 thin films grown by molecular beam epitaxy on SrTiO3(111), exhibiting a large carrier density tunabi…
The recent excitement about Dirac and Weyl fermion systems has renewed interest in magnetotransport properties of multi-carrier systems. However, the complexity of their analysis, even in the simplest two-carrier case, has hampered a good understanding of the underlying phenomena. Here we propose a new analysis scheme for two independent conduction channels, that strongly reduces previous ambiguities and allows to draw robust conclusions. This is demonstrated explicitly for the example of three-dimensional topological insulators. Their temperature and gate voltage-dependent Hall coefficient an…
Anomalous Hall-like signals in platinum in contact with magnetic insulators are common observations that could be explained by either proximity magnetization or spin Hall magnetoresistance. In this work, longitudinal and transverse magnetoresistances are measured in a pure gold thin film on the ferrimagnetic insulator Y$_3$Fe$_5$O$_{12}$ (Yttrium Iron Garnet, YIG). We show that both the longitudinal and transverse magnetoresistances have quantitatively consistent scaling in YIG/Au and in a YIG/Pt reference system when applying the Spin Hall magnetoresistance framework. No contribution of an an…
Spin-dependent transport at heavy metal/magnetic insulator interfaces is at the origin of many phenomena at the forefront of spintronics research. A proper quantification of the different interfacial spin conductances is crucial for many applications. Here, we report the first measurement of the spin Hall magnetoresistance (SMR) of Pt on a purely ferromagnetic insulator (EuS). We perform SMR measurements in a wide range of temperatures and fit the results by using a microscopic model. From this fitting procedure we obtain the temperature dependence of the spin conductances ($G_s$, $G_r$ and $G…
We demonstrate single atom anisotropic magnetoresistance on the surface of a topological insulator, arising from the interplay between the helical spin-momentum-locked surface electronic structure and the hybridization of the magnetic adatom states. Our first-principles quantum transport calculations based on density functional theory for Mn on Bi$_2$Se$_3$ elucidate the underlying mechanism. We complement our findings with a two dimensional model valid for both single adatoms and magnetic clusters, which leads to a proposed device setup for experimental realization. Our results provide an exp…
With the recent discovery of Weyl semimetals, the phenomenon of negative magnetoresistance (MR) is attracting renewed interest. While small negative MR can occur due to the suppression of spin scattering or weak localization, large negative MR is rare in materials, and when it happens, it is usually related to magnetism. The large negative MR in Weyl semimetals is peculiar in that it is unrelated to magnetism and comes from chiral anomaly. Here we report that there is a new mechanism for large negative MR which is not related to magnetism but is related to disorder. In the newly-synthesized bu…
We explore the temperature dependent magnetoresistance of bulk insulating topological insulator thin films. Thin films of Bi2Se2Te and BiSbTeSe1.6 were grown using Pulsed Laser Deposition technique and subjected to transport measurements. Magnetotransport measurements indicate a non-saturating linear magnetoresistance (LMR) behavior at high magnetic field values. We present a careful analysis to explain the origin of LMR taking into consideration all the existing models of LMR. Here we consider that the bulk insulating states and the metallic surface states constitute two parallel conduction c…
Studies of negative magnetoresistance in novel materials have recently been in the forefront of spintronic research. Here, we report an experimental observation of the temperature dependent negative magnetoresistance in Bi2Te3 topological insulator (TI) nanowires at ultralow temperatures (20 mK). We find a crossover from negative to positive magnetoresistance while increasing temperature under longitudinal magnetic field. We observe a large negative magnetoresistance which reaches -22% at 8T. The interplay between negative and positive magnetoresistance can be understood in terms of the compet…
We report on a temperature-induced transition from a conventional semiconductor to a two-dimensional topological insulator investigated by means of magnetotransport experiments on HgTe/CdTe quantum well structures. At low temperatures, we are in the regime of the quantum spin Hall effect and observe an ambipolar quantized Hall resistance by tuning the Fermi energy through the bulk band gap. At room temperature, we find electron and hole conduction that can be described by a classical two-carrier model. Above the onset of quantized magnetotransport at low temperature, we observe a pronounced li…
We report a metal-insulator like transition in single crystalline 3D topological insulator Bi2Te3 at a temperature of 230K in presence of an external magnetic field applied normal to the surface. This transition becomes more prominent at larger magnetic field strength with the residual resistance value increasing linearly with the magnetic field. At low temperature, the magnetic field dependence of the magnetoresistance shows a transition from logarithmic to linear behavior and the onset magnetic field value for this transition decreases with increasing temperature. The logarithmic magnetoresi…
Large unsaturated magnetoresistance (XMR) with magnitude about 1000% is observed in topological insulator candidate TaSe3 from our high field (up to 38 T) measurements. Two oscillation modes, associated with one hole pocket and two electron pockets in the bulk, respectively, are detected from our Shubnikov-de Hass (SdH) measurements, consistent with our first-principles calculations. With the detailed Hall measurements performed, our two-band model analysis exhibits an imperfect density ratio n_h/n_e closing 0.9 at T< 20 K , which suggests that the carrier compensations account for the XMR in …
We report current-direction dependent or unidirectional magnetoresistance (UMR) in magnetic/nonmagnetic topological insulator (TI) heterostructures, Cr$_x$(Bi$_{1-y}$Sb$_y$)$_{2-x}$Te$_3$/(Bi$_{1-y}$Sb$_y$)$_2$Te$_3$, that is several orders of magnitude larger than in other reported systems. From the magnetic field and temperature dependence, the UMR is identified to originate from the asymmetric scattering of electrons by magnons. In particular, the large magnitude of UMR is an outcome of spin-momentum locking and a small Fermi wavenumber at the surface of TI. In fact, the UMR is maximized ar…
Spin-orbit effects appearing in topological insulators (TI) and at Rashba interfaces are currently revolutionizing how we can manipulate spins and have led to several newly discovered effects, from spin-charge interconversion and spin-orbit torques to novel magnetoresistance phenomena. In particular, a puzzling magnetoresistance has been evidenced, bilinear in electric and magnetic fields. Here, we report the observation of bilinear magnetoresistance (BMR) in strained HgTe, a prototypical TI. We show that both the amplitude and sign of this BMR can be tuned by controlling, with an electric gat…
The recently discovered spin Hall magnetoresistance effect electrically probes pure spin current flow across a ferrimagnetic insulator/normal metal bilayer interface. While usually the DC electrical resistance of the bilayer is measured as a function of the magnetization orientation in the magnetic insulator, we here present magnetoimpedance measurements using bias currents with frequencies up to several GHz. We find that the spin Hall magnetoresistance effect persists up to frequencies of at least 4 GHz, enabling a fast readout of the magnetization direction in magnetic insulator/normal metal…
Silicene, germanene and stanene are two-dimensional topological insulators exhibiting helical edge states. We investigate global and local manipulations at the edges by exposing them to (i) a charge-density-wave order, (ii) a superconductor, (iii) an out-of-plane antiferromagnetic, and (iv) an in-plane antiferromagnetic field. We show that these perturbations affect the helical edge states in a different fashion. As a consequence one can realize quantum spin-Hall effect without edge states. In addition, these edge manipulations lead to very promising applications: a giant magnetoresistance and…
Spin accumulation in a paramagnetic semiconductor due to voltage-biased current tunneling from a polarized ferromagnet is experimentally manifest as a small additional spin-dependent resistance. We describe a rigorous model incorporating the necessary self-consistency between electrochemical potential splitting, spin-dependent injection current, and applied voltage that can be used to simulate this so-called "3T" signal as a function of temperature, doping, ferromagnet bulk spin polarization, tunnel barrier features and conduction nonlinearity, and junction voltage bias.
The temperature and thickness dependencies of the in-plane anisotropic magnetoresistance (AMR) of SmB$_6$ thin films are reported. We find that the AMR changes sign from negative ($ρ_{||}<ρ_{\perp}$) at high temperatures to positive ($ρ_{||}>ρ_{\perp}$) at low temperatures. The temperature, T$_s$, at which this sign change occurs, decreases with increasing film thickness $t$ and T$_s$ vanishes for $t$ $>$ 30 nm. We interpret our results in the framework of a competition between two components: a negative bulk contribution and a positive surface AMR.
We demonstrate the existence of Giant proximity magnetoresistance (PMR) effect in a graphene spin valve where spin polarization is induced by a nearby magnetic insulator. PMR calculations were performed for yttrium iron garnet (YIG), cobalt ferrite (CFO), and two europium chalcogenides EuO and EuS. We find a significant PMR (up to 100%) values defined as a relative change of graphene conductance with respect to parallel and antiparallel alignment of two proximity induced magnetic regions within graphene. Namely, for high Curie temperature (Tc) CFO and YIG insulators which are particularly impo…
We theoretically study the magnetoresistance (MR) of two-dimensional massless Dirac electrons as found on the surface of three-dimensional topological insulators (3D TIs) that is capped by a ferromagnetic insulator (FI). We calculate charge and spin transport by Kubo and Boltzmann theories, taking into account the ladder-vertex correction and the in-scattering due to normal and magnetic disorder. The induced exchange splitting is found to generate an electric conductivity that depends on the magnetization orientation, but its form is very different from both the anisotropic and spin Hall MR. T…
Influence of disorder-induced Anderson localization and of electron-electron interaction on superconductivity in two-dimensional systems is explored. We determine the superconducting transition temperature $T_c$, the temperature dependence of the resistivity, the phase diagram, as well as the magnetoresistance. The analysis is based on the renormalization group (RG) for a nonlinear sigma model. Derived RG equations are valid to the lowest order in disorder but for arbitrary electron-electron interaction strength in particle-hole and Cooper channels. Systems with preserved and broken spin-rotat…
The topological insulators have a gap in the bulk but extended states at the edge that can carry current. We study a geometry in which such edge states will manifest themselves through periodic oscillations in the magnetoconductance of a singly connected sample coupled to leads through narrow point contacts. The oscillations occur due to quantum interference of helical edge states of electrons traveling along the circumference of the sample, and have a period of B_0=h/eA_{eff}, where A_{eff} is the effective area enclosed by the edge states of the sample. Our calculation indicates the possibil…
This article aims at giving a general presentation of spintronics, an important field of research developing today along many new directions in physics of condensed matter. We tried to present simply the physical phenomena involved in spintronics -- no equations but many schematics. We also described the applications of spintronics, those of today and those expected to have an important impact on the next developments of the information and communication technologies.
Injection of spins into semiconductors is essential for the integration of the spin functionality into conventional electronics. Insulating layers are often inserted between ferromagnetic metals and semiconductors for obtaining an efficient spin injection, and it is therefore crucial to distinguish between signatures of electrical spin injection and impurity-driven effects in the tunnel barrier. Here we demonstrate an impurity-assisted tunneling magnetoresistance effect in nonmagnetic-insulator-nonmagnetic and ferromagnetic-insulator-nonmagnetic tunnel barriers. In both cases, the effect refle…
We investigate the influence of the hexagonal warping on the transport properties of the topological insulators. We study the charge conductivity within Kubo formalism in the first Born approximation using low energy expansion of the Hamiltonian near the Dirac point. The effects of disorder, magnetic field and chemical potential value are analyzed in details. We found that the presence of the hexagonal warping effects significantly the conductivity of the topological insulator. In particular, it gives rise to the growth of the longitudinal conductivity with the increase of the disorder and ani…
We studied low temperature (T=50mK) in-plane magnetoresistance of a dilute two-dimensional hole system in GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure that exhibits an apparent metal-insulator transition. We found an anisotropic magnetoresistance, which changes dramatically at high in-plane fields ($B_{\parallel}\agt$5T) as the hole density is varied. At high densities where the system behaves metallic at $B_{\parallel}=0$, the transverse magnetoresistance is larger than the longitudinal magnetoresistance. With decreasing the hole density the difference becomes progressively smaller, and at densities near the …
A magnetoresistance effect induced by the Rashba spin-orbit interaction was predicted, but not yet observed, in bilayers consisting of normal metal and ferromagnetic insulator. Here, we present an experimental observation of this new type of spin-orbit magnetoresistance (SOMR) effect in a bilayer structure Cu[Pt]/Y3Fe5O12 (YIG), where the Cu/YIG interface is decorated with nanosize Pt islands. This new MR is apparently not caused by the bulk spin-orbit interaction because of the negligible spin-orbit interaction in Cu and the discontinuity of the Pt islands. This SOMR disappears when the Pt is…
