Origins of anisotropic linear magnetoresistance with isotropic mobility in Cd3As2 films on GaAs110

Thin film synthesis allows for the potential to orient crystals in different orientations, permitting measurement of orientation-dependent material aspects such as band structures and transport anisotropy. Here, Dirac semimetal Cd3As2 films are epitaxially grown on GaAs110 substrates, which has a 001 orientation in-plane. Films contain domains of two different c-axis orientations resulting from an aligned a-axis in-plane. Magnetoresistance measurements performed along both 11¯0 and 001 substrate directions reveal similar mobility and carrier concentration, but much larger magnetoresistance along the 001 direction, which can be explained by the guiding center diffusion model as arising from anisotropic disorder and different atomic spacings.