Stretching ZrTe₅ tunes its quantum oscillations through a spin zero
Under tensile strain along the crystal’s a axis, the resistance oscillations weakened and then reappeared with the opposite sign.
Peipei Wang and colleagues measured how the resistance of ZrTe₅ oscillates as a magnetic field is swept. Stretching the crystal weakened the oscillations until their amplitude passed through a node. Beyond that point the signal changed sign, a signature of cancellation between the two spin contributions.
The intercept of a Landau fan plot stayed close to the value associated with a π Berry phase. The authors attributed the reversal to a strain-driven shift in the relative phase of spin-split orbits. Liyuan Zhang at SUSTech and Quansheng Wu at the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, are the corresponding authors of the Applied Physics Letters paper.