Slow Oscillations of the Transverse Magnetoresistance in HoTe3

Abstract

Slow oscillations of the magnetoresistance periodic in the inverse magnetic field with a frequency of 3.4 T have been identified in HoTe3. The temperature dependence of the oscillation amplitude is close to exponential even at low temperatures. This may be attributed to the existence of soft modes in the system and allows the estimation of the electron scattering rate on these modes. In the region of magnetic fields exceeding 1 T, the oscillations can be described as interference oscillations associated with the splitting of the band structure due to the bilayer structure of HoTe3. The obtained data have allowed us to calculate the ratio tb/tz~7.7 of the hopping integrals between layers within each bilayer (tb) and between the adjacent bilayers (tz) to estimate these integrals as tb ~ 2 meV and tz ~ 0.26 meV.