scholarly journals Evidence for a strain-tuned topological phase transition in ZrTe5

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (8) ◽  
pp. eaav9771 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Mutch ◽  
Wei-Chih Chen ◽  
Preston Went ◽  
Tiema Qian ◽  
Ilham Zaky Wilson ◽  
...  

A phase transition between topologically distinct insulating phases involves closing and reopening the bandgap. Near the topological phase transition, the bulk energy spectrum is characterized by a massive Dirac dispersion, where the bandgap plays the role of mass. We report measurements of strain dependence of electrical transport properties of ZrTe5, which is known to host massive Dirac fermions in the bulk due to its proximity to a topological phase transition. We observe that the resistivity exhibits a pronounced minimum at a critical strain. We further find that the positive longitudinal magnetoconductance becomes maximal at the critical strain. This nonmonotonic strain dependence is consistent with the switching of sign of the Dirac mass and, hence, a strain-tuned topological phase transition in ZrTe5.

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun Park ◽  
Sangwan Sim ◽  
Nikesh Koirala ◽  
Matthew Brahlek ◽  
Seongshik Oh ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Milad Jangjan ◽  
Mir Vahid Hosseini

AbstractWe theoretically report the finding of a new kind of topological phase transition between a normal insulator and a topological metal state where the closing-reopening of bandgap is accompanied by passing the Fermi level through an additional band. The resulting nontrivial topological metal phase is characterized by stable zero-energy localized edge states that exist within the full gapless bulk states. Such states living on a quasi-one-dimensional system with three sublattices per unit cell are protected by hidden inversion symmetry. While other required symmetries such as chiral, particle-hole, or full inversion symmetry are absent in the system.


Crystals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 746
Author(s):  
Meiling Hong ◽  
Lidong Dai ◽  
Haiying Hu ◽  
Xinyu Zhang

A series of investigations on the structural, vibrational, and electrical transport characterizations for Ga2Se3 were conducted up to 40.2 GPa under different hydrostatic environments by virtue of Raman scattering, electrical conductivity, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, and atomic force microscopy. Upon compression, Ga2Se3 underwent a phase transformation from the zinc-blende to NaCl-type structure at 10.6 GPa under non-hydrostatic conditions, which was manifested by the disappearance of an A mode and the noticeable discontinuities in the pressure-dependent Raman full width at half maximum (FWHMs) and electrical conductivity. Further increasing the pressure to 18.8 GPa, the semiconductor-to-metal phase transition occurred in Ga2Se3, which was evidenced by the high-pressure variable-temperature electrical conductivity measurements. However, the higher structural transition pressure point of 13.2 GPa was detected for Ga2Se3 under hydrostatic conditions, which was possibly related to the protective influence of the pressure medium. Upon decompression, the phase transformation and metallization were found to be reversible but existed in the large pressure hysteresis effect under different hydrostatic environments. Systematic research on the high-pressure structural and electrical transport properties for Ga2Se3 would be helpful to further explore the crystal structure evolution and electrical transport properties for other A2B3-type compounds.


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