Magnetisation and magneto-transport measurements on CeBi single crystals

We report the synthesis of CeBi single crystals out of Bi self-flux and a systematic study of the magnetic and transport properties with varying temperature and applied magnetic fields. From these R(T,H) and M(T,H) data, we could assemble the field-temperature (H−T) phase diagram for CeBi and visualise the three-dimensional M−T−H surface. In the phase diagram, we identify regions with well-defined magnetisation values and identify a new phase region. The magnetoresistance (MR) in the low-temperature regime shows, above 6 T a power-law, non-saturated behaviour with large MR (∼3×105% at 2 K and 13.95 T), along with Shubnikov–de Haas oscillations. With increasing temperatures, MR decreases, and then becomes negative for T⪆10 K. This crossover in MR seems to be unrelated to any specific magnetic or metamagnetic transitions, but rather is associated with changing from a low-temperature normal metal regime with little or no scattering from the Ce3+ moments and an anomalously large MR, to increased scattering from local Ce moments and a negative MR as temperature increases.