2021/01/19 by Yefan Tian, Nader Ghassemi, Joseph H. Ross +1
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Band gap #Condensed matter physics #Dirac (video compression format) #Graphene research and applications #Physics #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #Quantum mechanics #Semimetal #Topological Materials and Phenomena #cond-mat.str-el
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.126.236401
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 126, 236401 (2021) · 5 pages, 4 figures
arxiv created 2021/01/19 · openalex created_date 2021/02/01 · openalex publication_date 2021/06/11 · arxiv updated 2021/06/14 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We apply 125Te nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to investigate the Dirac semimetal ZrTe5. With the NMR magnetic field parallel to the b axis, we observe significant quantum magnetic effects. These include an abrupt drop at 150 K in spin-lattice relaxation rate. This corresponds to a gap-opening transition in the Dirac carriers, likely indicating the onset of excitonic pairing. Below 50 K, we see a more negative shift for the Tez bridging site, indicating the repopulation of Dirac levels with spin polarized carriers at these temperatures. This is the previously reported 3D quantum Hall regime; however, we see no sign of a charge density wave as has been proposed.