10027/21137 Y. L. Wang Y. L. Wang L. R. Thoutam L. R. Thoutam Z. L. Xiao Z. L. Xiao J. Hu J. Hu S. Das S. Das Z. Q. Mao Z. Q. Mao J. Wei J. Wei R. Divan R. Divan A. Luican-Mayer A. Luican-Mayer G. W. Crabtree G. W. Crabtree W. K. Kwok W. K. Kwok Origin of the turn-on temperature behavior in WTe2 University of Illinois at Chicago 2016 turn-on temperature behavior temperature WTe2 origin 2016-09-12 00:00:00 Journal contribution https://indigo.uic.edu/articles/journal_contribution/Origin_of_the_turn-on_temperature_behavior_in_WTe2/10774271 A hallmark of materials with extremely large magnetoresistance (XMR) is the transformative turn-on temperature behavior: when the applied magnetic field H is above certain value, the resistivity versus temperature ρ(T) curve shows a minimum at a field dependent temperature T∗, which has been interpreted as a magnetic-field-driven metal-insulator transition or attributed to an electronic structure change. Here, we demonstrate that ρ(T) curves with turn-on behavior in the newly discovered XMR material WTe2 can be scaled as MR∼(H/ρ0)m with m≈2 and ρ0 being the resistivity at zero field. We obtained experimentally and also derived from the observed scaling the magnetic field dependence of the turn-on temperature T∗∼(H-Hc)ν with ν≈1/2, which was earlier used as evidence for a predicted metal-insulator transition. The scaling also leads to a simple quantitative expression for the resistivity ρ∗≈2ρ0 at the onset of the XMR behavior, which fits the data remarkably well. These results exclude the possible existence of a magnetic-field-driven metal-insulator transition or significant contribution of an electronic structure change to the low-temperature XMR in WTe2. This work resolves the origin of the turn-on behavior observed in several XMR materials and also provides a general route for a quantitative understanding of the temperature dependence of MR in both XMR and non-XMR materials.