No Arabic abstract
We investigate the thermal-driven charge density wave (CDW) transition of two cubic superconducting intermetallic systems Lu(Pt1-xPdx)2In and (Sr1-xCax)3Ir4Sn13 by means of x-ray diffraction technique. A detailed analysis of the CDW modulation superlattice peaks as function of temperature is performed for both systems as the CDW transition temperature T_CDW is suppressed to zero by an non-thermal control parameter. Our results indicate an interesting crossover of the classical thermal-driven CDW order parameter critical exponent from a three-dimensional universality class to a mean-field tendency, as T_CDW vanishes. Such behavior might be associated with presence of quantum fluctuations which influences the classical second-order phase transition, strongly suggesting the presence of a quantum critical point (QCP) at T_CDW = 0. This also provides experimental evidence that the effective dimensionality exceeds its upper critical dimension due to a quantum phase transition.
The transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) $1T$-TaS$_{2}$ exhibits a rich set of charge density wave (CDW) orders. Recent investigations suggested that using light or electric field can manipulate the commensurate (C) CDW ground state. Such manipulations are considered to be determined by the charge carrier doping. Here we simulate by first-principles calculations the carrier doping effect on CCDW in $1T$-TaS$_{2}$. We investigate the charge doping effects on the electronic structures and phonon instabilities of $1T$ structure and analyze the doping induced energy and distortion ratio variations in CCDW structure. We found that both in bulk and monolayer $1T$-TaS$_{2}$, CCDW is stable upon electron doping, while hole doping can significantly suppress the CCDW, implying different mechanisms of such reported manipulations. Light or positive perpendicular electric field induced hole doping increases the energy of CCDW, so that the system transforms to NCCDW or similar metastable state. On the other hand, even the CCDW distortion is more stable upon in-plain electric field induced electron injection, some accompanied effects can drive the system to cross over the energy barrier from CCDW to nearly commensurate (NC) CDW or similar metastable state. We also estimate that hole doping can introduce potential superconductivity with $T_{c}$ of $6sim7$ K. Controllable switching of different states such as CCDW/Mott insulating state, metallic state, and even the superconducting state can be realized in $1T$-TaS$_{2}$, which makes the novel material have very promising applications in the future electronic devices.
We report on the study of a magnetic dislocation in pure chromium. Coherent x-ray diffraction profiles obtained on the incommensurate Spin Density Wave (SDW) reflection are consistent with the presence of a dislocation of the magnetic order, embedded at a few micrometers from the surface of the sample. Beyond the specific case of magnetic dislocations in chromium, this work may open up a new method for the study of magnetic defects embedded in the bulk.
Incommensurate charge density waves (CDW) have the extraordinary ability to display non-Ohmic behavior when submitted to an external field. The mechanism leading to this non trivial dynamics is still not well understood, although recent experimental studies tend to prove that it is due to solitonic transport. Solitons could come from the relaxation of the strained CDW within an elastic-to-plastic transition. However, the nucleation process and the transport of these charged topological objects have never been observed at the local scale until now. In this letter, we use in-situ scanning x-ray micro-diffraction with micrometer resolution of a NbSe$_3$ sample designed to have sliding and non-sliding areas. Direct imaging of the charge density wave deformation is obtained using an analytical approach based on the phase gradient to disentangle the transverse from the longitudinal components over a large surface of a hundred microns size. We show that the CDW dissociates itself from the host lattice in the sliding regime and displays a large transverse deformation, ten times larger than the longitudinal one and strongly dependent on the amplitude and the direction of the applied currents. This deformation continuously extends across the macroscopic sample dimensions, over a distance 10 000 times greater than the CDW wavelength despite the presence of strong defects while remaining strongly pinned by the lateral surfaces. This 2D quantitative study highlights the prominent role of shear effect that should play a significant role in the nucleation of solitons.
We report an x-ray diffraction study on the charge-density-wave (CDW) LaTe$_3$ and CeTe$_3$ compounds as a function of pressure. We extract the lattice constants and the CDW modulation wave-vector, and provide direct evidence for a pressure-induced quenching of the CDW phase. We observe subtle differences between the chemical and mechanical compression of the lattice. We account for these with a scenario where the effective dimensionality in these CDW systems is dependent on the type of lattice compression and has a direct impact on the degree of Fermi surface nesting and on the strength of fluctuation effects.
The semimetallic or semiconducting nature of the transition metal dichalcogenide 1$T$-TiSe$_2$ remains under debate after many decades mainly due to the fluctuating nature of its 2 $times$ 2 $times$ 2 charge-density-wave (CDW) phase at room-temperature. In this letter, using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, we unambiguously demonstrate that the 1$T$-TiSe$_2$ normal state is semimetallic with an electron-hole band overlap of $sim$110 meV by probing the low-energy electronic states of the perturbed CDW phase strongly doped by alkali atoms. Our study not only closes a long-standing debate but also supports the central role of the Fermi surface for driving the CDW and superconducting instabilities in 1$T$-TiSe$_2$.