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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 Bi 2 Te 3 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 8 T. The interplay between negative and positive magnetoresistance can be understood in terms of the competition between dephasing and spin-orbit scattering time scales. Based on the first-principles calculations within a density functional theory framework, we demonstrate that disorder (substitutional) by Ga + ion milling process, which is used to fabricate nanowires, induces local magnetic moments in Bi 2 Te 3 crystal that can lead to spin-dependent scattering of surface and bulk electrons. These experimental findings show a significant advance in the nanoscale spintronics applications based on longitudinal magnetoresistance in TIs. Our experimental results of large negative longitudinal magnetoresistance in 3D TIs further indicate that axial anomaly is a universal phenomenon in generic 3D metals.

We report the experimental observation of variable range hopping conduction in focused-ion-beam (FIB) fabricated ultra-narrow nanowires of topological insulator (Bi 2 Se 3 ). The value of the exponent (d + 1) -1 in the hopping equation was extracted as [Formula: see text]for different widths of nanowires, which is the proof of the presence of Efros-Shklovskii hopping transport mechanism in a strongly disordered system. High localization lengths (0.5 nm, 20 nm) were calculated for the devices. A careful analysis of the temperature dependent fluctuations present in the magnetoresistance curves, using the standard Universal Conductance Fluctuation theory, indicates the presence of 2D topological surface states. Also, the surface state contribution to the conductance was found very close to one conductance quantum. We believe that our experimental findings shed light on the understanding of quantum transport in disordered topological insulator based nanostructures.