Exceptional Magneto-resistance in 3D Dirac Semimetal Bi0.96Sb0.04.

Recent experimental evidence for Weyl fermions in topological semimetals has attracted considerable attention. These materials are three-dimensional analogue of graphene. The present work is motivated by the recent prediction of Weyl semi-metallic phase in Bi1-xSbx alloys. In this paper we present the electronic transport properties studied under high applied magnetic fields in Bi0.96Sb0.04 alloys. The sample exhibits extremely high magneto-resistance; MR(5 K, 8 T) = 9.8×10⁴ %. This value is comparable to the MR observed in recently discovered other members of these emergent materials. Most importantly, this composition shows large MR at room temperature, MR (300 K, 8 T) = 435%, which is almost twice to that observed in Dirac semimetal Cd₃As₂ (= 200 % at 14.5 T) and Weyl semimetal NbP (= 250% at 9 T). We also discuss single crystal growth technique as well as Hall measurement data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]