We report on the magnetotransport properties of chemical vapor deposition grown films of interconnected Bi2Te3 nanoplates. Similar to many other topological insulator (TI) materials, these granular Bi2Te3 films exhibit a linear magnetoresistance (LMR) effect which has received much recent attention. Studying samples with different degree of granularity, we find a universal correlation between the magnitude of the LMR and the average mobility (⟨μ⟩) of the films over nearly 2 orders of magnitude change of ⟨μ⟩. The granularity controlled LMR effect here is attributed to the mobility fluctuation induced classical LMR according to the Parish-Littlewood theory. These findings have implications to both the fundamental understanding and magnetoresistive device applications of TI and small bandgap semiconductor materials.
Keywords: Topological insulator; granularity; magnetoresistance; nanoplate; thin film.