Origin of the quasi-quantized Hall effect in ZrTe5
Origin of the quasi-quantized Hall effect in ZrTe5
Galeski, S.; Ehmcke, T.; Wawrzyńczak, R.; Lozano, P. M.; Cho, K.; Sharma, A.; Das, S.; Küster, F.; Sessi, P.; Brando, M.; Küchler, R.; Markou, A.; König, M.; Swekis, P.; Felser, C.; Sassa, Y.; Li, Q.; Gu, G.; Zimmermann, M. V.; Ivashko, O.; Gorbunov, D.; Zherlitsyn, S.; Förster, T.; Parkin, S. S. P.; Wosnitza, J.; Meng, T.; Gooth, J.
The quantum Hall effect (QHE) is traditionally considered to be a purely two-dimensional (2D) phenomenon. Recently, however, a three-dimensional (3D) version of the QHE was reported in the Dirac semimetal ZrTe5. It was proposed to arise from a magnetic-field-driven Fermi surface instability, transforming the original 3D electron system into a stack of 2D sheets. Here, we report thermodynamic, spectroscopic, thermoelectric and charge transport measurements on such ZrTe5 samples. The measured properties: magnetization, ultrasound propagation, scanning tunneling spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy, show no signatures of a Fermi surface instability, consistent with in-field single crystal X-ray diffraction. Instead, a direct comparison of the experimental data with linear response calculations based on an effective 3D Dirac Hamiltonian suggests that the quasi-quantization of the observed Hall response emerges from the interplay of the intrinsic properties of the ZrTe5 electronic structure and its Dirac-type semi-metallic character.
Involved research facilities
- High Magnetic Field Laboratory (HLD)
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Nature Communications 12(2021), 3197
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-23435-y
Cited 29 times in Scopus
Permalink: https://www.hzdr.de/publications/Publ-32716