No Arabic abstract
We investigate the electronic structure of the new family of kagome metals AV$_{3}$Sb$_{5}$ (A = K, Rb, Cs) using first-principles calculations. We analyze systematically the evolution of the van Hove singularities (vHss) across the entire family upon applied pressure and hole doping, specifically focusing on the two vHss closer to the Fermi energy. With pressure, these two saddle points shift away from the Fermi level. At the same time, the Fermi surface undergoes a large reconstruction with respect to the Sb bands while the V bands remain largely unchanged, pointing to the relevant role of the Sb atoms in the electronic structure of these materials. Upon hole doping, we find the opposite trend, where the saddle points move closer to the Fermi level for increasing dopings. All in all, we show how pressure and doping are indeed two mechanisms that can be used to tune the location of the two vHss closer to the Fermi level and can be exploited to tune different Fermi surface instabilities and associated orders.
Van Hove singularity are electronic instabilities that lead to many fascinating interactions, such as superconductivity and charge-density waves. And despite much interest, the nexus of emergent correlation effects from van Hove singularities and topological states of matter remains little explored in experiments. By utilizing synchrotron-based angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and Density Functional Theory, here we provide the first discovery of the helicoid quantum nature of topological Fermi arcs inducing van Hove singularities. In particular, in topological chiral conductors RhSi and CoSi we directly observed multiple types of inter- and intra-helicoid-arc mediated singularities, which includes the type-I and type-II van Hove singularity. We further demonstrate that the energy of the helicoid-arc singularities are easily tuned by chemical engineering. Taken together, our work provides a promising route to engineering new electronic instabilities in topological quantum materials.
Following the discovery of a new family of kagome prototypical materials with structure AV$_3$Sb$_5$ (A = K, Rb, Cs), there has been heightened interest in studying correlation-driven electronic phenomena in these kagome lattice systems. The study of these materials has gone beyond magneto-transport measurements to reveal exciting features such as Dirac bands, anomalous Hall effect, bulk superconductivity with $T_c$ $sim$ 0.9 K-2.5 K, and the observation of charge density wave instabilities which suggests an intertwining of topological physics and new quantum orders. Moreover, very recent works on numerous types of experiments have appeared further examining the unconventional superconductivity and the exotic electronic states found within these kagome materials. Theories on the strong interactions that play a role in these systems have been proposed to shed light on the nature of these topological charge density waves. In this brief review, we summarize these recent experimental findings and theoretical proposals to connect them with the concepts of topological physics and strongly-correlated electron systems.
We report the temperature dependent mid- and near-infrared spectra of K4C60, Rb4C60 and Cs4C60. The splitting of the vibrational and electronic transitions indicates a molecular symmetry change of C604- which brings the fulleride anion from D2h to either a D3d or a D5d distortion. In contrast to Cs4C60, low temperature neutron diffraction measurements did not reveal a structural phase transition in either K4C60 and Rb4C60. This proves that the molecular transition is driven by the molecular Jahn-Teller effect, which overrides the distorting potential field of the surrounding cations at high temperature. In K4C60 and Rb4C60 we suggest a transition from a static to a dynamic Jahn-Teller state without changing the average structure. We studied the librations of these two fullerides by temperature dependent inelastic neutron scattering and conclude that both pseudorotation and jump reorientation are present in the dynamic Jahn-Teller state.
Understanding and tuning correlated states is of great interest and significance to modern condensed matter physics. The recent discovery of unconventional superconductivity and Mott-like insulating states in magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene (tBLG) presents a unique platform to study correlation phenomena, in which the Coulomb energy dominates over the quenched kinetic energy as a result of hybridized flat bands. Extending this approach to the case of twisted multilayer graphene would allow even higher control over the band structure because of the reduced symmetry of the system. Here, we study electronic transport properties in twisted trilayer graphene (tTLG, bilayer on top of monolayer graphene heterostructure). We observed the formation of van Hove singularities which are highly tunable by twist angle and displacement field and can cause strong correlation effects under optimum conditions, including superconducting states. We provide basic theoretical interpretation of the observed electronic structure.
The magnetic properties of iron-based superconductors $A$Fe$_2$As$_2$ ($A=$K, Cs, and Rb), which are characterized by the V-shaped dependence of the critical temperature ($T_{rm c}$) on pressure ($P$) were studied by means of the muon spin rotation/relaxation technique. In all three systems studied the magnetism was found to appear for pressures slightly below the critical one ($P_{rm c}$), i.e. at pressure where $T_{rm c}(P)$ changes the slope. Rather than competing, magnetism and superconductivity in $A$Fe$_2$As$_2$ are coexisting at $Pgtrsim P_{rm c}$ pressure region. Our results support the scenario of a transition from one pairing state to another, with different symmetries on either side of $P_{rm c}$.