Quantum electrons in material show strange oscillations under pressure

Electrons within the material zirconium pentatelluride exhibit unusual behavior under intense conditions, defying predictions from standard physics. Researchers from the University of São Paulo (USP), the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the University of Washington subjected ZrTe₅ to 60 tesla magnetic fields and cooled it to 0.7 kelvin (-272.45 °C) to observe non-periodic quantum oscillations. “This work expands our understanding of electron transport in exotic phases of matter and suggests that topological insulators support the transport of not only electric charge, but also electron spin,” says Julio Larrea Jiménez, a professor at USP’s Physics Institute. The findings point to a topological origin for these oscillations, rather than typical electron interactions. Researchers led by Julio Larrea Jiménez combined extreme magnetic field experiments with detailed theoretical modeling to…