  Persistent spin texture (PST) is the property of some materials to maintain a
uniform spin configuration in the momentum space. This property has been
predicted to support an extraordinarily long spin lifetime of carriers
promising for spintronics applications. The PST is known to emerge when the
strengths of two dominant spin-orbit couplings, the Rashba and linear
Dresselhaus, are equal. This condition, however, is not trivial to achieve and
requires tuning the Rashba and Dresselhaus parameters, as has been demonstrated
with semiconductor quantum-well structures. Here we predict that there exist a
class of non-centrosymmetric bulk materials where the PST is enforced by the
non-symmorphic space group symmetry of the crystal. Around certain high
symmetry points in the Brillouin zone, the sublattice degrees of freedom impose
a constraint on the effective spin-orbit field, which remains independent of
the momentum orientation and thus maintains the PST. We illustrate this
behavior using density-functional theory calculations for a handful of
promising candidates accessible experimentally. Among them is the ferroelectric
oxide BiInO3-a wide band gap semiconductor which sustains a PST around the
conduction band minimum. Our results broaden the range of materials, which can
be employed in spintronics.
