No Arabic abstract
Layered kagome-lattice 3d transition metals are emerging as an exciting platform to explore the frustrated lattice geometry and quantum topology. However, the typical kagome electronic bands, characterized by sets of the Dirac-like band capped by a phase-destructive flat band, have not been clearly observed, and their orbital physics are even less well investigated. Here, we present close-to-textbook kagome bands with orbital differentiation physics in CoSn, which can be well described by a minimal tight-binding model with single-orbital hopping in Co kagome lattice. The capping flat bands with bandwidth less than 0.2 eV run through the whole Brillouin zone, especially the bandwidth of the flat band of out-of-plane orbitals is less than 0.02 eV along G-M. The energy gap induced by spin-orbit interaction at the Dirac cone of out-of-plane orbitals is much smaller than that of in-plane orbitals, suggesting orbital-selective character of the Dirac fermions.
The kagome lattice is a two-dimensional network of corner-sharing triangles known as a platform for exotic quantum magnetic states. Theoretical work has predicted that the kagome lattice may also host Dirac electronic states that could lead to topological and Chern insulating phases, but these have evaded experimental detection to date. Here we study the d-electron kagome metal Fe$_3$Sn$_2$ designed to support bulk massive Dirac fermions in the presence of ferromagnetic order. We observe a temperature independent intrinsic anomalous Hall conductivity persisting above room temperature suggestive of prominent Berry curvature from the time-reversal breaking electronic bands of the kagome plane. Using angle-resolved photoemission, we discover a pair of quasi-2D Dirac cones near the Fermi level with a 30 meV mass gap that accounts for the Berry curvature-induced Hall conductivity. We show this behavior is a consequence of the underlying symmetry properties of the bilayer kagome lattice in the ferromagnetic state with atomic spin-orbit coupling. This report provides the first evidence for a ferromagnetic kagome metal and an example of emergent topological electronic properties in a correlated electron system. This offers insight into recent discoveries of exotic electronic behavior in kagome lattice antiferromagnets and may provide a stepping stone toward lattice model realizations of fractional topological quantum states.
The kagome lattice based on 3d transition metals is a versatile platform for novel topological phases hosting symmetry-protected electronic excitations and exotic magnetic ground states. However, the paradigmatic states of the idealized two-dimensional (2D) kagome lattice - Dirac fermions and topological flat bands - have not been simultaneously observed, partly owing to the complex stacking structure of the kagome compounds studied to date. Here, we take the approach of examining FeSn, an antiferromagnetic single-layer kagome metal with spatially-decoupled kagome planes. Using polarization- and termination-dependent angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), we detect the momentum-space signatures of coexisting flat bands and Dirac fermions in the vicinity of the Fermi energy. Intriguingly, when complemented with bulk-sensitive de Haas-van Alphen (dHvA) measurements, our data reveal an even richer electronic structure that exhibits robust surface Dirac fermions on specific crystalline terminations. Through band structure calculations and matrix element simulations, we demonstrate that the bulk Dirac bands arise from in-plane localized Fe-3d orbitals under kagome symmetry, while the surface state realizes a rare example of fully spin-polarized 2D Dirac fermions when combined with spin-layer locking in FeSn. These results highlight FeSn as a prototypical host for the emergent excitations of the kagome lattice. The prospect to harness these excitations for novel topological phases and spintronic devices is a frontier of great promise at the confluence of topology, magnetism, and strongly-correlated electron physics.
CoSn is a Pauli paramagnet with relatively flat d-bands centered about 100 meV below the Fermi energy Ef. Single crystals of CoSn lightly doped with Fe, In, or Ni are investigated using x-ray and neutron scattering, magnetic susceptibility and magnetization, ac susceptibility, specific heat and resistivity measurements. Within the rigid band approximation, hole doping with a few percent of Fe or In should move the flat bands closer to Ef, whereas electron doping with Ni should move the flat bands further away from Ef. We provide evidence that this indeed occurs. Fe and In doping drive CoSn toward magnetism, while Ni doping suppresses CoSns already weak magnetic response. The resulting ground state is different for Fe versus In doping. For Fe-doped crystals, Co1-xFexSn, with 0.02 < x < 0.27, the magnetic and specific heat data are consistent with the formation of a spin glass, with a glass transition temperature, Tg, ranging from 1 K for x=0.02 to 10 K for x= 0.27. Powder and single crystal neutron diffraction found no evidence of long-range magnetic order below Tg with x = 0.17. For In-doped crystals, CoSn1-yIny, both the magnetic susceptibility and the Sommerfeld coefficient, gamma, increase substantially relative to pure CoSn, but with no clear indication of a magnetic transition for 0.05 < y < 0.2. CoSn crystals doped with Ni (Co0.93Ni0.07Sn) have a significantly smaller magnetic susceptibility and gamma than pure CoSn, consistent with the flat bands further from Ef.
The notion of an electronic flat band refers to a collectively degenerate set of quantum mechanical eigenstates in periodic solids. The vanishing kinetic energy of flat bands relative to the electron-electron interaction is expected to result in a variety of many-body quantum phases of matter. Despite intense theoretical interest, systematic design and experimental realization of such flat band-driven correlated states in natural crystals have remained a challenge. Here we report the realization of a partially filled flat band in a new single crystalline kagome metal Ni$_3$In. This flat band is found to arise from the Ni $3d$-orbital wave functions localized at triangular motifs within the kagome lattice plane, where an underlying destructive interference among hopping paths flattens the dispersion. We observe unusual metallic and thermodynamic responses suggestive of the presence of local fluctuating magnetic moments originating from the flat band states, which together with non-Fermi liquid behavior indicate proximity to quantum criticality. These results demonstrate a lattice and orbital engineering approach to designing flat band-based many-body phenomena that may be applied to integrate correlation with topology and as a novel means to construct quantum criticality.
Extremely large positive magnetoresistance (XMR) was found in a nonmagnetic semimetal InBi. Using several single crystals with different residual resistivity ratios (RRRs), we revealed that the XMR strongly depended on the RRR (sample quality). Assuming that there were no changes in effective mass m* and carrier concentrations in these single crystals, this dependence was explained by a semiclassical two-carrier model. First-principle calculations including the spin-orbit interactions (SOI) unveiled that InBi had a compensated carrier balance and SOI-induced hidden three-dimensional (3D) Dirac bands at the M and R points. Because the small m* and the large carrier mobilities will be realized, these hidden 3D Dirac bands should play an important role for the XMR in InBi. We suggest that this feature can be employed as a novel strategy for the creation of XMR semimetals.