Giant Hall effect in a highly conductive frustrated magnet GdCu2

Abstract

The Hall effect is one of the most fundamental but elusive phenomena in condensed matter physics due to the rich variety of underlying mechanisms. Here we report an exceptionally large Hall effect in a frustrated magnet GdCu2 with high conductivity. The Hall conductivity at the base temperature is as high as the order of 104–105 Ω−1cm−1 and shows abrupt sign changes under magnetic fields. Remarkably, the giant Hall effect is rapidly suppressed as the longitudinal conductivity is lowered upon increasing temperature or introducing tiny amount of quenched disorder. Our systematic transport measurements combined with neutron scattering measurements, ab initio band calculations and spin model calculations indicate that the unusual Hall effect can be understood in terms of spin-splitting induced emergence/disappearance of Fermi pockets as well as skew scattering from spin-chiral cluster fluctuations in a field-polarized state. The present study demonstrates complex interplay among magnetization, spin-dependent electronic structure, and spin fluctuations in producing the giant Hall effect in highly conductive frustrated magnets with a distorted triangular lattice.