Planar Hall effect in Cu intercalated PdTe2

Abstract

The discovery of the planar Hall effect in the topological semimetals has generated extensive research interest recently. We present the planar Hall effect studies on Cu intercalated type-II Dirac semimetal PdTe2 in order to understand the role of chiral anomaly. We observed a positive field dependence of electrical resistivity in both perpendicular and parallel field directions, causing a non-zero anisotropy. The planar Hall signal and anisotropic resistivity oscillate with the in-plane angle with an oscillation period of π. However, the positive longitudinal magnetoresistance, which shows almost linear field dependence at low temperatures, rules out the chiral anomaly as an origin of the planar Hall effect. In addition, Cu0.05PdTe2 is found to exhibit a tilted prolate shaped orbits in parametric plot between transverse and longitudinal resistivities. Our study suggests that for the type-II Dirac semimetal materials with positive longitudinal magnetoresistance, the origin of the planar Hall effect cannot be asserted with certainty to the topological or non-topological origins without considering the anisotropy of the Fermi surface.