Sensitivity of the interlayer magnetoresistance of layered metals to intralayer anisotropies

Abstract

Many of the most interesting and technologically important electronic materials discovered in the past two decades have both a layered crystal structure and strong interactions between electrons. Two fundamental questions about such layered metals concern the origin of intralayer anisotropies and the coherence of interlayer charge transport. We show that angle dependent magnetoresistance oscillations ͑AMROs͒ are sensitive to anisotropies around an intralayer Fermi surface and can hence be a complementary probe of such anisotropies to angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and scanning tunneling microscopy. However, AMROs are not very sensitive to the coherence of the interlayer transport which has implications for recent AMRO experiments on an overdoped cuprate.

Broken rotational symmetry on the Fermi surface of a high-Tc superconductor

“…[30][31][32][33][34] To map the Fermi surface geometry of YBa 2 Cu 3 O 6.58 we performed interlayer (ρ zz ) magnetoresistance measurements in a fixed magnetic field of 45 T even in the absence of interlayercoherence, AMR is still sensitive to the Fermi surface geometry (see ref. 35). The field-angle dependence of ρ zz was obtained by rotating the sample in situ, sweeping the polar angle θ between the magnetic field and the crystalline ĉ-axis for several values of the azimuthal angle ϕ (see the inset of Fig.…”

Quantum interference and weak localization effects in the interlayer magnetoresistance of layered metals

“…In previous work, 11 we considered the AMRO that arises when there is an anisotropic Fermi surface and anisotropic scattering in two different limits. These two limits were the limit of coherent interlayer transport and the limit of weakly incoherent interlayer transport in which there is hopping between adjacent layers.…”

“…11,15 There has been previous work in this direction, [16][17][18][19][20][21][22] but this either focused on weak localization in anisotropic metals, or did not consider the magnetic-field configurations relevant for AMRO. Our work is motivated by experiments in which deviations from conventional AMRO are seen.…”

“…14 In order for AMRO to be observable, only coherence between neighboring layers is required, i.e., weakly incoherent transport, and for almost all angles, this leads to AMRO that is equivalent to fully coherent transport ͑i.e., there is a three-dimensional Fermi surface͒ perpendicular to the planes. 11,15 In general, the two situations can be distinguished in transport measurements only if there is a coherence peak in the resistivity for fields close to parallel to the layers. In this work, we show that quantum interference effects can also lead to a peak in the resistivity at fields close to parallel to the layers, for weakly incoherent transport.…”

“…[6][7][8] More recent developments have extended this to allow one to not only determine the anisotropies in the Fermi surface, but also the anisotropy of scattering on the Fermi surface. [7][8][9][10][11][12][13] In addition to the shape of the Fermi surface, the coherence of interlayer transport in layered metals has been a complicated and controversial issue. 14 In order for AMRO to be observable, only coherence between neighboring layers is required, i.e., weakly incoherent transport, and for almost all angles, this leads to AMRO that is equivalent to fully coherent transport ͑i.e., there is a three-dimensional Fermi surface͒ perpendicular to the planes.…”