A study published in Nature Communications has revealed an unusual form of quantum oscillation in a three-dimensional topological insulator. The findings show that electrons in zirconium pentatelluride (ZrTe5) can behave in unexpected ways when exposed to temperatures close to absolute zero and extremely powerful magnetic fields.
The research was led by scientists from the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil, Los Alamos National Laboratory, the University of Washington, and other U.S. institutions. The team combined electrical transport experiments performed in magnetic fields as strong as 60 tesla and at temperatures near 0.7 kelvin (-272.45 °C) with detailed theoretical calculations.
"This work expands our understanding of electron transport in exotic phases of matter and suggests that topological insulators support the transport of not only electric charge, but also another fundamental degree of freedom: electron spin," says Julio Larrea Jiménez, a professor at USP's Physics Institute (IF) and co-founder and director of the Laboratory for Quantum Matter under Extreme Conditions (LQMEC).
Larrea served as the doctoral advisor of Cauê Kaufmann Ribeiro, the study's first author. Ribeiro carried out a large portion of the experimental work during an internship at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Los Alamos, United States, supported by a FAPESP Research Internship Abroad. While there, he was co-advised by Johanna Palmstrom and Sean Thomas.
