Nonlinear Magnetotransport in Chiral Crystal Tellurium

Real-space structural chirality, a unique form of spatial inversion symmetry breaking, has recently garnered significant experimental and theoretical attention. Tellurium (Te), an elemental semiconductor with a crystal structure of distinct helical Te chains, exhibits radial spin texture in k-space due to broken mirror symmetry, giving rise to collinear Rashba-Edelstein effect (REE). In both bulk crystals and two-dimensional Te flakes, large electrical magnetochiral anisotropy (eMChA) has been observed with the presence of out-of-plane magnetic field. In addition, unidirectional magnetoresistance was reported in one-dimensional Te nanowires and interpreted as a signature of charge-to-spin conversion. In this study, we present a comprehensive set of measurements on pre-patterned ‘L’-bar devices of Te, enabling the examination of all possible combinations of current and magnetic field directions with respect to the chiral crystal axis within a single device. Charge-spin conversion is observed when the current and magnetic field are collinear with the helical axis, while distinct behavior emerges when current flows along a transverse direction. Interestingly, by tuning the Fermi level using an applied gate voltage, we observed another manifestation of the eMChA under in-plane magnetic field. These two phenomena exhibit contrasting dependences on current, magnetic field, and their alignment with the crystalline axes, suggesting they originate from different physical mechanisms. Our findings advance the understanding of nonlinear transport in chiral crystals and offer insights into disentangling the contributions of spin and orbital angular momentum to nonlinear transport in Te.