Field-Induced Metal–Insulator Transition in $\beta$-EuP$_3$
Guangqiang Wang1, Guoqing Chang2, Huibin Zhou1, Wenlong Ma1, Hsin Lin3, M. Zahid Hasan2,4, Su-Yang Xu5, and Shuang Jia1,6,7,8*
1International Center for Quantum Materials, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China 2Laboratory of Topological Quantum Matter and Advanced Spectroscopy (B7), Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA 3Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, Taipei 11529, China 4Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA 5Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA 6Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter, Beijing 100871, China 7CAS Center for Excellence in Topological Quantum Computation, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China 8Beijing Academy of Quantum Information Sciences, Beijing 100193, China
Abstract：Metal–insulator transition (MIT) is one of the most conspicuous phenomena in correlated electron systems. However such a transition has rarely been induced by an external magnetic field as the field scale is normally too small compared with the charge gap. We present the observation of a magnetic-field-driven MIT in a magnetic semiconductor $\beta $-EuP$_3$. Concomitantly, we find a colossal magnetoresistance in an extreme way: the resistance drops billionfold at 2 K in a magnetic field less than 3 T. We ascribe this striking MIT as a field-driven transition from an antiferromagnetic and paramagnetic insulator to a spin-polarized topological semimetal, in which the spin configuration of Eu$^{2+}$ cations and spin-orbital coupling play a crucial role. As a phosphorene-bearing compound whose electrical properties can be controlled by the application of field, $\beta $-EuP$_3$ may serve as a tantalizing material in the basic research and even future electronics.
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2020, Vol. 37 
