Symmetry origin and microscopic mechanism of electrical magnetochiral anisotropy in tellurium

Nonlinear transport effects in response to external magnetic fields, i.e., electrical magnetochiral anisotropy (eMChA), have attracted much attention for their importance in studying quantum and spin-related phenomena. Indeed, they have permitted the exploration of topological surface states and charge to spin conversion processes in low-symmetry systems. Nevertheless, despite the inherent correlation between the symmetry of the material under examination and its nonlinear transport characteristics, there is a lack of experimental demonstration to delve into this relationship and to unveil their microscopic mechanisms. Here, we study eMChA in chiral elemental tellurium (Te) along different crystallographic directions, establishing the connection between the different eMChA components and the crystal symmetry of Te. We observed different longitudinal eMChA components with collinear current and magnetic field, demonstrating experimentally the radial angular momentum texture of Te. We also measured a transverse nonlinear resistance which, as the longitudinal counterpart, scales bilinearly with current and magnetic fields, illustrating that they are different manifestations of the same effect. Finally, we study the scaling law of the eMChA, evidencing that extrinsic scattering is the dominant microscopic mechanism. These findings underscore the efficacy of symmetry-based investigations in understanding and predicting nonlinear transport phenomena, with potential applications in spintronics and energy harvesting.