Spin-orbit quantum impurity and quantization in a topological magnet

Abstract

Quantum states induced by single-atomic impurities are at the frontier of physics and material science. While such states have been reported in high-temperature superconductors and dilute magnetic semiconductors, they are unexplored in topological magnets which can feature spin-orbit tunability. Here we use spin-polarized scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy (STM/S) to study the engineered quantum impurity in a topological magnet Co3Sn2S2. We find that each substituted In impurity introduces a striking localized bound state. Our systematic magnetization-polarized probe reveals that this bound state is spin-down polarized, in lock with a negative orbital magnetization. Moreover, the magnetic bound states of neighboring impurities interact to form quantized orbitals, exhibiting an intriguing spin-orbit splitting, analogous to the splitting of the topological fermion line. Our work collectively demonstrates the strong spin-orbit effect of the single-atomic impurity at the quantum level, suggesting that a nonmagnetic impurity can introduce spin-orbit coupled magnetic resonance in topological magnets.

arXiv commentTo appear in Nature Communications (2020), both experiment and theory included. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2002.11783

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• Discovery of unconventional chiral charge order in kagome superconductor KV3Sb5
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• Electronic nature of chiral charge order in the kagome superconductor CsV3Sb5
• Intrinsic nature of chiral charge order in the kagome superconductor RbV3Sb5
• Probing topological quantum matter with scanning tunnelling microscopy
• Discovery of charge order and corresponding edge state in kagome magnet FeGe
• Topological charge-entropy scaling in kagome Chern magnet TbMn${}_6$Sn${}_6$
• Local Probes for Charge-Neutral Edge States in Two-Dimensional Quantum Magnets
• No observation of chiral flux current in the topological kagome metal CsV${}_3$Sb${}_5$
• First-principles investigation of magnetic and transport properties in hole-doped shandite compounds Co${}_3$In${}_x$Sn${}_{2-x}$S${}_2$
• Discovery and construction of surface kagome electronic states induced by p-d electronic hybridization
• Spin-polarized imaging of the antiferromagnetic structure and field-tunable bound states in kagome magnet FeSn
• Revealing the chemical bonding in adatoms arrays via machine learning of 3D scanning tunneling spectroscopy data
• How correlations change the magnetic structure factor of the kagome Hubbard model
• Electronic structure evolution of the magnetic Weyl semimetal Co${}_3$Sn${}_2$S${}_2$ with hole and electron doping
• Atomically-precise engineering of spin-orbit polarons in a kagome magnetic Weyl semimetal
• Quantum half-orphans in kagome antiferromagnets
• Perspective: imaging atomic step geometry to determine surface terminations of kagome materials and beyond
• Evidence for electronic signature of magnetic transition in topological magnet HoSbTe
• Local excitation of kagome spin ice magnetism in HoAgGe seen by scanning tunneling microscopy
• Effects of exchange distortions in the magnetic Kagome lattice
• Anisotropic response of defect bound states to magnetic field in epitaxial FeSn films
• Bayesian learning of adatom interactions from atomically-resolved imaging data
• Magnetically tunable Dirac and Weyl fermions in the Zintl materials family