Reentrant Landau levels in a Dirac topological insulator

Pentatellurides have emerged as an ideal platform for exploring topological phase transitions and their electronic properties. Positioned at the boundary between a strong and weak topological insulator phase, their low carrier density and linear dispersion enable a three-dimensional Dirac Hamiltonian description. A complete understanding of these materials remains elusive due to unexplained sample variability. In particular, these materials have been shown to host anomalous magnetoresistance including $$\log (B)$$-periodic signals, non-$$\log (B)$$ and non-1/B oscillations, in addition to the conventional 1/B quantum oscillations. Differing interpretations invoke many-body effects and there is currently no unified understanding of these oscillations. Here we report non-1/B oscillations in ZrTe5 down to 700 mK and up to 60 T, with a temperature and magnetic field dependence that violates the Lifshitz–Kosevich framework. We show that nonlinear Landau-level back-bending, arising from the interplay of cyclotron energy and strong spin-orbit coupling in a non-interacting Dirac system, captures all observed regimes and provides a foundation for understanding the electron dynamics of Dirac topological insulators beyond the quantum limit. Pentatellurides exhibit magnetoresistance oscillations that deviate from conventional 1/B Landau-quantization. Here, the authors demonstrate robust non-1/B oscillations in ZrTe5 and show that nonlinear Landau level backbending reconciles the diverse oscillatory regimes across the pentatellurides.