Anomalous Hall effect and negative longitudinal magnetoresistance in half-Heusler topological semimetal candidates TbPtBi and HoPtBi

Abstract

Half-Heusler compounds have attracted significant attention because of their topologically non-trivial electronic structure, which leads to unusual electron transport properties. We thoroughly investigated the magnetotransport properties of high-quality single crystals of two half-Heusler phases, TbPtBi and HoPtBi, in pursuit of the characteristic features of topologically non-trivial electronic states. Both studied compounds are characterized by the giant values of transverse magnetoresistance with no sign of saturation in a magnetic field up to 14 T. HoPtBi demonstrates the Shubnikov–de Haas effect with two principal frequencies, indicating a complex Fermi surface; the extracted values of carrier effective masses are rather small, 0.18 me and 0.27 me. The investigated compounds exhibit negative longitudinal magnetoresistance and anomalous Hall effect, which likely arise from a nonzero Berry curvature. Both compounds show strongly anisotropic magnetoresistance that in HoPtBi exhibits a butterfly-like behavior.