A spin-resolved photoemission study of the transition-metal pentatelluride ZrTe₅

Topological materials have garnered significant attention in recent years due to their unique electronic properties and potential applications in spintronics and quantum computing. The transition-metal pentatelluride ZrTe₅ has been shown to lie in close proximity to multiple topological phases, thereby making this material a prime candidate for studying topological phase transitions. Conflicting results within both ab initio calculations and experimental studies, however, have necessitated further investigation to determine the true topological nature of this material. Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) has been a widely utilized tool for directly probing its electronic structure, though still has yielded inconsistent findings. Spin-resolved ARPES is uniquely capable of visualizing the spin texture of electronic band structure, but has not been extensively performed on ZrTe₅ due to the difficulty of performing measurements at the requisite resolution to yield new insights into its topology. Here, we employ high-resolution spin-resolved ARPES to observe the spin texture of the surface electronic structure of ZrTe₅, revealing spin-polarized bands and shedding further light on the manifestations of spin-orbit physics to the topological nature of this material.