Weak Kondo effect in the monocrystalline transition metal dichalcogenide ZrTe2

Zr-Te compounds are an ideal platform to investigate novel electrical transport properties. Here we report the Kondo effect in single-crystalline ${\mathrm{ZrTe}}_{2}$. When $T<8$ K, ${\mathrm{ZrTe}}_{2}$ exhibits a $\mathrm{log}T$ dependence of resistivity, which may derive from three different mechanisms, including electron-electron interaction, weak localization, and Kondo effect. By measuring transport properties with magnetic field along different directions, the former two mechanisms were excluded. Isotropic negative magnetoresistance was extracted by subtracting different quadratic background signals caused by Lorentz force, which reveals the existence of a weak Kondo effect in this material.