Surface magnetoresistance in antiferromagnetic semiconductor CrSb₂

Surface transport in bulk semiconducting materials has attracted much attention recently. In this respect, CrSb₂ is an interesting material, since it is an antiferromagnetic narrow-gap semiconductor with a metallic surface state [1]. The previous report [1] has shown that the surface conduction dominates over bulk one at low temperatures below ~15 K. However, the magnetic property of the surface state remains to be investigated in contrast to the established antiferromagnetic structure of the bulk state [2,3]. In the present work, we perform the low-temperature measurement of angle–dependent magnetoresistance (ADMR) in high magnetic fields up to 24 T to explore novel magneto-transport property due to the possible surface magnetization. At 1.4 K where the surface conduction is well dominant, we show that ADMR at 24 T exhibits strong two-fold symmetry, which can be attributed to anisotropic magnetoresistance in the magnetic surface state. We will report the systematic results of temperature and magnetic-field dependence of surface ADMR.

[1] Q. Du et al., Phys. Rev. Res., 2, 043085 (2020).

[2] M. B. Stone et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., 108, 167202 (2012).

[3] M. B. Stone et al.,108, 167202 (2012).