Incipient nematicity from electron flat bands in a kagome metal

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Drucker, Nathan, Nguyen, Thanh, Mandal, Manasi, Siriviboon, Phum, Quan, Yujie, Boonkird, Artittaya, Okabe, Ryotaro, Li, Fankang, Buragge, Kaleb, Funuma, Fumiaki, Matsuda, Masaaki, Abernathy, Douglas, Williams, Travis, Chi, Songxue, Ye, Feng, Nelson, Christie, Liao, Bolin, Volkov, Pavel, Li, Mingda
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Drucker, Nathan
Nguyen, Thanh
Mandal, Manasi
Siriviboon, Phum
Quan, Yujie
Boonkird, Artittaya
Okabe, Ryotaro
Li, Fankang
Buragge, Kaleb
Funuma, Fumiaki
Matsuda, Masaaki
Abernathy, Douglas
Williams, Travis
Chi, Songxue
Ye, Feng
Nelson, Christie
Liao, Bolin
Volkov, Pavel
Li, Mingda
author_facet Drucker, Nathan
Nguyen, Thanh
Mandal, Manasi
Siriviboon, Phum
Quan, Yujie
Boonkird, Artittaya
Okabe, Ryotaro
Li, Fankang
Buragge, Kaleb
Funuma, Fumiaki
Matsuda, Masaaki
Abernathy, Douglas
Williams, Travis
Chi, Songxue
Ye, Feng
Nelson, Christie
Liao, Bolin
Volkov, Pavel
Li, Mingda
contents Engineering new quantum phases requires fine tuning of the electronic, orbital, spin, and lattice degrees of freedom. To this end, the kagome lattice with flat bands has garnered great attention by hosting various topological and correlated phases, when the flat band is at the Fermi level. Here we discover unconventional nematiciy in kagome metal CoSn, where flat bands are fully occupied below the Fermi level. Thermodynamic, dilatometry, resonant X-ray scattering, inelastic neutron scattering, Larmor diffraction, and thermoelectric measurements consistently hint at rotational symmetry-breaking and nematic order that is pronounced only near T=225 K. These observations, principally the nematic's finite temperature stability -- incipience -- can be explained by a phenomenological model which reveals that thermally excited flat bands promote symmetry breaking at a characteristic temperature. Our work shows that thermal fluctuations, which are typically detrimental for correlated electron phases, can induce new ordered states of matter, avoiding the requirements for fine tuning of electronic bands.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2401_17141
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Incipient nematicity from electron flat bands in a kagome metal
Drucker, Nathan
Nguyen, Thanh
Mandal, Manasi
Siriviboon, Phum
Quan, Yujie
Boonkird, Artittaya
Okabe, Ryotaro
Li, Fankang
Buragge, Kaleb
Funuma, Fumiaki
Matsuda, Masaaki
Abernathy, Douglas
Williams, Travis
Chi, Songxue
Ye, Feng
Nelson, Christie
Liao, Bolin
Volkov, Pavel
Li, Mingda
Strongly Correlated Electrons
Engineering new quantum phases requires fine tuning of the electronic, orbital, spin, and lattice degrees of freedom. To this end, the kagome lattice with flat bands has garnered great attention by hosting various topological and correlated phases, when the flat band is at the Fermi level. Here we discover unconventional nematiciy in kagome metal CoSn, where flat bands are fully occupied below the Fermi level. Thermodynamic, dilatometry, resonant X-ray scattering, inelastic neutron scattering, Larmor diffraction, and thermoelectric measurements consistently hint at rotational symmetry-breaking and nematic order that is pronounced only near T=225 K. These observations, principally the nematic's finite temperature stability -- incipience -- can be explained by a phenomenological model which reveals that thermally excited flat bands promote symmetry breaking at a characteristic temperature. Our work shows that thermal fluctuations, which are typically detrimental for correlated electron phases, can induce new ordered states of matter, avoiding the requirements for fine tuning of electronic bands.
title Incipient nematicity from electron flat bands in a kagome metal
topic Strongly Correlated Electrons
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.17141