Electronic transport properties of a lithium-decorated ZrTe₅ thin film

Through a combination of single crystal growth, experiments involving in situ deposition of surface adatoms, and complimentary modeling, we examine the electronic transport properties of lithium-decorated ZrTe₅ thin films. We observe that the surface states in ZrTe₅ are robust against Li adsorption. Both the surface electron density and the associated Berry phase are remarkably robust to adsorption of Li atoms. Fitting to the Hall conductivity data reveals that there exist two types of bulk carriers: those for which the carrier density is insensitive to Li adsorption, and those whose density decreases during initial Li depositions and then saturates with further Li adsorption. We propose this dependence is due to the gating effect of a Li-adsorption-generated dipole layer at the ZrTe₅ surface.