Giant negative magnetoresistance driven by spin-orbit coupling at the LAO/STO interface

2014

The LAO/STO interface hosts a two-dimensional electron system that is unusually sensitive to the application of an in-plane magnetic field. Low-temperature experiments have revealed a giant negative magnetoresistance (dropping by 70\%), attributed to a magnetic-field induced transition between interacting phases of conduction electrons with Kondo-screened magnetic impurities. Here we report on experiments over a broad temperature range, showing the persistence of the magnetoresistance up to the 20~K range --- indicative of a single-particle mechanism. Motivated by a striking correspondence between the temperature and carrier density dependence of our magnetoresistance measurements we propos…