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Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Evidence for a percolative Mott insulator-metal transition in doped Sr2IrO4
    (College Park, MD : APS, 2021) Sun, Zhixiang; Guevara, Jose M.; Sykora, Steffen; Pärschke, Ekaterina M.; Manna, Kaustuv; Maljuk, Andrey; Wurmehl, Sabine; van den Brink, Jeroen; Büchner, Bernd; Hess, Christian
    Despite many efforts to rationalize the strongly correlated electronic ground states in doped Mott insulators, the nature of the doping-induced insulator-to-metal transition is still a subject under intensive investigation. Here, we probe the nanoscale electronic structure of the Mott insulator Sr2IrO4−δ with low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy and find an enhanced local density of states (LDOS) inside the Mott gap at the location of individual defects which we interpret as defects at apical oxygen sites. A chiral behavior in the topography for those defects has been observed. We also visualize the local enhanced conductance arising from the overlapping of defect states which induces finite LDOS inside of the Mott gap. By combining these findings with the typical spatial extension of isolated defects of about 2 nm, our results indicate that the insulator-to-metal transition in Sr2IrO4−δ could be percolative in nature.
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    Long-range magnetic order in the ~S=1/2 triangular lattice antiferromagnet KCeS2
    (Amsterdam : SciPost Foundation, 2020) Bastien, Gaël; Rubrecht, Bastian; Haeussler, Ellen; Schlender, Philipp; Zangeneh, Ziba; Avdoshenko, Stanislav; Sarkar, Rajib; Alfonsov, Alexey; Luther, Sven; Onykiienko, Yevhen A.; Walker, Helen C.; Kühne, Hannes; Grinenko, Vadim; Guguchia, Zurab; Kataev, Vladislav; Klauss, Hans-Henning; Hozoi, Liviu; van den Brink, Jeroen; Inosov, Dmytro S.; Büchner, Bernd; Wolter, Anja U.B.; Doert, Thomas
    Recently, several putative quantum spin liquid (QSL) states were discovered in ~S=1/2 rare-earth based triangular-lattice antiferromagnets (TLAF) with the delafossite structure. A way to clarify the origin of the QSL state in these systems is to identify ways to tune them from the putative QSL state towards long-range magnetic order. Here, we introduce the Ce-based TLAF KCeS2 and show via low-temperature specific heat and μSR investigations that it yields magnetic order below TN=0.38 K despite the same delafossite structure. We identify a well separated ~S=1/2 ground state for KCeS2 from inelastic neutron scattering and embedded-cluster quantum chemical calculations. Magnetization and electron spin resonance measurements on single crystals indicate a strong easy-plane g~factor anisotropy, in agreement with the ab initio calculations. Finally, our specific-heat studies reveal an in-plane anisotropy of the magnetic field-temperature phase diagram which may indicate anisotropic magnetic interactions in KCeS2.
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    Sixfold fermion near the Fermi level in cubic PtBi2
    (Amsterdam : SciPost Foundation, 2021) Thirupathaiah, Setti; Kushnirenko, Yevhen; Koepernik, Klaus; Piening, Boy Roman; Büchner, Bernd; Aswartham, Saicharan; van den Brink, Jeroen; Borisenko, Sergey; Fulga, Ion Cosma
    We show that the cubic compound PtBi2, is a topological semimetal hosting a sixfold band touching point in close proximity to the Fermi level. Using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, we map the bandstructure of the system, which is in good agreement with results from density functional theory. Further, by employing a low energy effective Hamiltonian valid close to the crossing point, we study the effect of a magnetic field on the sixfold fermion. The latter splits into a total of twenty Weyl cones for a Zeeman field oriented in the diagonal, [111] direction. Our results mark cubic PtBi2, as an ideal candidate to study the transport properties of gapless topological systems beyond Dirac and Weyl semimetals.
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    Axion Mie theory of electron energy loss spectroscopy in topological insulators
    (Amsterdam : SciPost Foundation, 2021) Schultz, Johannes; Nogueira, Flavio S.; Büchner, Bernd; van den Brink, Jeroen; Lubk, Axel
    Electronic topological states of matter exhibit novel types of responses to electromagnetic fields. The response of strong topological insulators, for instance, is characterized by a so-called axion term in the electromagnetic Lagrangian which is ultimately due to the presence of topological surface states. Here we develop the axion Mie theory for the electromagnetic response of spherical particles including arbitrary sources of fields, i.e., charge and current distributions. We derive an axion induced mixing of transverse magnetic and transverse electric modes which are experimentally detectable through small induced rotations of the field vectors. Our results extend upon previous analyses of the problem. Our main focus is on the experimentally relevant problem of electron energy loss spectroscopy in topological insulators, a technique that has so far not yet been used to detect the axion electromagnetic response in these materials.