Pressure-Tuned Competing Electronic States in Layered Tellurides

Mahmoud Abdel-Hafiez; Govindaraj Lingannan; D. A. Chareev; A. N. Vasiliev; Anas Abutaha; Kadir Can Dogan; Mehmet Yagmurcukardes; Mehmet Egilmez; Hasan Sahin; Sami El-Khatib

arXiv · 2604.21336

Pressure-Tuned Competing Electronic States in Layered Tellurides

Mahmoud Abdel-Hafiez·Govindaraj Lingannan·D. A. Chareev·A. N. Vasiliev·Anas Abutaha·Kadir Can Dogan·Mehmet Yagmurcukardes·Mehmet Egilmez·Hasan Sahin·Sami El-Khatib

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Abstract

Layered transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) host competing electronic states that can be tuned by external perturbations, providing a platform to explore the interplay between disorder, electronic structure, and quantum transport. Here we investigate magnetotransport in bulk semiconducting 2H-MoTe2 under hydrostatic pressure. At ambient pressure, transport evolves from high-temperature metallic behavior into activated conduction and ultimately a strongly localized variable-range hopping regime, accompanied by a pronounced magnetotransport anomaly near 45 K and large, nonsaturating magnetoresistance extending up to an unprecedented field of 60 T in semiconducting 2H-MoTe2. Under compression to 15.6 GPa, the insulating state is rapidly suppressed and a low-resistivity regime emerges in which quantum interference dominates, exhibiting a crossover from weak antilocalization (WAL) to weak localization (WL) at low temperatures. A physically motivated phenomenological description captures the magnetoresistance across these regimes and yields a characteristic electronic length scale that remains comparable across the localized and quantum-interference regimes. First-principles calculations reveal a continuous pressure-driven collapse of the bandgap into a semimetallic electronic structure. These results establish a unified picture of pressure-tuned transport spanning hopping and quantum-coherent regimes.

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Mahmoud Abdel-Hafiez, Govindaraj Lingannan, D. A. Chareev, A. N. Vasiliev, Anas Abutaha, Kadir Can Dogan, Mehmet Yagmurcukardes, Mehmet Egilmez, Hasan Sahin, Sami El-Khatib. 2026-04-23. Pressure-Tuned Competing Electronic States in Layered Tellurides. https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.21336

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