The upper critical field H(c2) of purple bronze Li0:9Mo6O17 is found to exhibit a large anisotropy, in quantitative agreement with that expected from the observed electrical resistivity anisotropy. With the field aligned along the most conducting axis, H(c2) increases monotonically with decreasing temperature to a value 5 times larger than the estimated paramagnetic pair-breaking field. Theories for the enhancement of H(c2) invoking spin-orbit scattering or strong-coupling superconductivity are shown to be inadequate in explaining the observed behavior, suggesting that the pairing state in Li0:9Mo6O17 is unconventional and possibly spin triplet.

When charge carriers are spatially confined to one dimension, conventional Fermi-liquid theory breaks down. In such Tomonaga–Luttinger liquids, quasiparticles are replaced by distinct collective excitations of spin and charge that propagate independently with different velocities. Although evidence for spin–charge separation exists, no bulk low-energy probe has yet been able to distinguish successfully between Tomonaga–Luttinger and Fermi-liquid physics. Here we show experimentally that the ratio of the thermal and electrical Hall conductivities in the metallic phase of quasi-one-dimensional Li0.9Mo6O17 diverges with decreasing temperature, reaching a value five orders of magnitude larger than that found in conventional metals. Both the temperature dependence and magnitude of this ratio are consistent with Tomonaga–Luttinger liquid theory. Such a dramatic manifestation of spin–charge separation in a bulk three-dimensional solid offers a unique opportunity to explore how the fermionic quasiparticle picture recovers, and over what time scale, when coupling to a second or third dimension is restored.

Motivated by the search for design principles of rare-earth-free strong magnets, we present a study of electronic structure and magnetic properties of the ferromagnetic metal Fe3GeTe2 within local density approximation (LDA) of the density functional theory, and its combination with dynamical mean-field theory (DMFT). For comparison to these calculations, we have measured magnetic and thermodynamic properties as well as X-ray magnetic circular dichroism and the photoemission spectrum of single crystal Fe3GeTe2. We find that the experimentally determined Sommerfeld coefficient is enhanced by an order of magnitude with respect to the LDA value. This enhancement can be partially explained by LDA+DMFT. In addition, the inclusion of dynamical electronic correlation effects provides the experimentally observed magnetic moments, and the spectral density is in better agreement with photoemission data. These results establish the importance of electronic correlations in this ferromagnet.

The change in resistance of a material in a magnetic field reflects its electronic state. In metals with weakly- or non-interacting electrons, the resistance typically increases upon the application of a magnetic field. In contrast, negative magnetoresistance may appear under some circumstances, e.g., in metals with anisotropic Fermi surfaces or with spin-disorder scattering and semimetals with Dirac or Weyl electronic structures. Here we show that the non-magnetic semimetal TaAs2 possesses a very large negative magnetoresistance, with an unknown scattering mechanism. Density functional calculations find that TaAs2 is a new topological semimetal [ℤ2 invariant (0;111)] without Dirac dispersion, demonstrating that a negative magnetoresistance in non-magnetic semimetals cannot be attributed uniquely to the Adler-Bell-Jackiw chiral anomaly of bulk Dirac/Weyl fermions.

There has been considerable interest in topological semi-metals that exhibit extreme magnetoresistance (XMR). These have included materials lacking inversion symmetry such as TaAs, as well Dirac semi-metals such as Cd3As2. However, it was reported recently that LaSb and LaBi also exhibit XMR, even though the rock-salt structure of these materials has inversion symmetry, and the band-structure calculations do not show a Dirac dispersion in the bulk. Here, we present magnetoresistance and specific heat measurements on NdSb, which is isostructural with LaSb. NdSb has an antiferromagnetic groundstate, and in analogy with the lanthanum monopnictides, is expected to be a topologically non-trivial semi-metal. We show that NdSb has an XMR of ∼ 10 4 %, even within the AFM state, illustrating that XMR can occur independently of the absence of time reversal symmetry breaking in zero magnetic field. The persistence of XMR in a magnetic system offers promise of new functionality when combining topological matter with electronic correlations. We also find that in an applied magnetic field below the Néel temperature there is a first order transition, consistent with evidence from previous neutron scattering work.