The Effect of Dopants on the Magnetoresistance of WTe2

Elucidating the nature of the large, non-saturating magnetoresistance in WTe2 is a significant step in functionalizing this phenomenon for applications. Here, Mo, Re, and Ta doped WTe2 are compared to determine whether isovalent and aliovalent substitutions have different effects on the large magnetoresistance. By 1% substitution, isoelectronic doping reduces the magnetoresistance by a factor of 1.2 with an apparent linear trend, whereas aliovalent doping reduces the effect by over an order of magnitude while following a higher-order decay. The apparent increased sensitivity of the magnetoresistive effect to aliovalent doping over simple isoelectronic disorder supports the conclusion that the large magnetoresistance in WTe2 arises from interactions between balanced hole and electron populations.