Interlayer magnetoresistance due to chiral soliton lattice formation in hexagonal chiral magnet CrNb3S6

Phys Rev Lett. 2013 Nov 8;111(19):197204. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.197204. Epub 2013 Nov 7.

Abstract

We investigate the interlayer magnetoresistance (MR) along the chiral crystallographic axis in the hexagonal chiral magnet CrNb3S6. In a region below the incommensurate-commensurate phase transition between the chiral soliton lattice and the forced ferromagnetic state, a negative MR is obtained in a wide range of temperature, while a small positive MR is found very close to the Curie temperature. Normalized data of the negative MR almost falls into a single curve and is well fitted by a theoretical equation of the soliton density, meaning that the origin of the MR is ascribed to the magnetic scattering of conduction electrons by a nonlinear, periodic, and countable array of magnetic soliton kinks.