Nonlinear electrical transport phenomena as fingerprints of a topological phase transition in ZrTe5

• Published in: Communications materials Vol. 4; no. 1; pp. 111 - 10
• Main Authors: Salawu, Yusuff Adeyemi, Adhikari, Dilanath, Kim, Jin Hee, Rhyee, Jong-Soo, Sasaki, Minoru, Kim, Ki-Seok, Kim, Heon-Jung
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 20-12-2023; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 639/301/119/2792/4128; 639/766/119/2792/4128; Chemistry and Materials Science; Curvature; Electric fields; Fingerprints; Magnetic fields; Materials Science; Phase transitions; Scaling; Topology; Transport phenomena; Transport properties
• ISSN: 2662-4443; 2662-4443
• DOI: 10.1038/s43246-023-00437-5

Topological phase transitions, influenced by magnetic fields, dopants, pressure, and temperature, create Berry curvature in band structures, challenging to detect due to resolution and scattering issues in spectroscopy and transport. Here, we propose nonlinear electrical transport phenomena as fingerprints of a topological phase transition in ZrTe
5
under magnetic fields. Both a nonlinear longitudinal conductivity
Δσ
L
in a magnetic-field-aligned electric field and a third-order nonlinear Hall (transverse) conductivity
Δσ
xy
in a magnetic-field-perpendicular electric field arise below a characteristic temperature
T
*
. The sensitivity of nonlinear transport to the band topology allows the detection of a subtle change in the band topology hidden in linear transport coefficients. Extending the previous scaling theory between linear transport coefficients (
σ
xx
and
σ
xy
), we also propose scaling relations for both linear (
σ
xx
and
σ
xy
) and nonlinear (
Δσ
L
and
Δσ
xy
) transport coefficients. These scaling relations will help understand the interplay between the mechanisms of nonlinear transport coefficients and the influence of Berry curvature.
When electronic band structures undergo a topological phase transition, a non-trivial Berry curvature emerges, but its experimental detection is challenging. Here, scaling relations in the nonlinear magneto-electric transport are used to reveal a topological phase transition in ZrTe
5
under magnetic fields.