Single crystal growth and physical properties of layered compound SrCdBi₂

Abstract

We have grown the high quality single crystals of SrCdBi2 successfully and investigated the physical properties systematically through measurements of magnetoresistance, Hall effect, magnetic susceptibility, and specific heat measurements. The compound is a nonmagnetic 112-type pnictide with a Bi square net layer, which is potential for hosting Dirac fermions. We found that it exhibited metallic behavior with an anomaly appearing at around 210 K. Magnetoresistance study reveal that the electronic structure of SrCdBi2 is quasi-two-dimensional. At low temperatures, we observed magnetic field induced metal-to-insulator-like transition and resistivity plateau, nonsaturating quasilinear magnetoresistance, and high carrier mobility in magnetotransport measurements, which indicate the possible existence of nearly massless Dirac fermions in SrCdBi2. The anomaly at around 210 K can be observed in resistivity, Hall effect, and magnetic susceptibility, but can’t be detected in heat capacity. This implies the anomaly might be caused by domain formation or disorder. We found that the nonsaturating linear magnetoresistance in SrCdBi2 is likely caused by both of the quantum linear dispersion and the classical disorder. Our findings suggest that SrCdBi2 is a natural experimental platform for realizing the topological properties of nonmagnetic 112-type pnictides.