Emergent Tetragonality in a Fundamentally Orthorhombic Material

Abstract

Symmetry plays a key role in determining the physical properties of materials. By Neumann's principle, the properties of a material are invariant under the symmetry operations of the space group to which the material belongs. Continuous phase transitions are associated with a spontaneous reduction in symmetry. (For example, the onset of ferromagnetism spontaneously breaks time reversal symmetry.) Much less common are examples where proximity to a continuous phase transition leads to an increase in symmetry. Here, we find an emergent tetragonal symmetry close to an apparent charge density wave (CDW) bicritical point in a fundamentally orthorhombic material, ErTe${}_3$, for which the CDW phase transitions are tuned via anisotropic strain. The underlying structure of the material remains orthorhombic for all applied strains, including at the bicritical point, due to a glide plane symmetry in the crystal structure. Nevertheless, the observation of a divergence in the anisotropy of the in-plane elastoresistivity reveals an emergent electronic tetragonality near the bicritical point.

References in corpus (4)

• Wave vector dependent electron-phonon coupling drives charge-density-wave formation in TbTe3
• Higher angular momentum pairings in interorbital shadowed-triplet superconductors: Application to Sr${}_2$RuO${}_4$
• Multiple Charge Density Wave States at the Surface of TbTe${}_3$
• Emergent ${\mathbb{Z}}_2$ symmetry near a CDW multicritical point

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Elasto-Hall conductivity and the anomalous Hall effect in altermagnets
• Atomic-Scale Visualization of a Cascade of Magnetic Orders in the Layered Antiferromagnet $GdT{e}_3$
• Uncovering the Hidden Ferroaxial Density Wave as the Origin of the Axial Higgs Mode in RTe${}_3$
• Ultrafast measurements under anisotropic strain reveal near equivalence of competing charge orders in TbTe${}_3$
• Versatile multi-q antiferromagnetic charge order in correlated vdW metals
• Evolution of charge-density-wave soft phonon modes in ${\mathrm{Pd}}_x{\mathrm{ErTe}}_3$
• Energetically Favored One-Dimensional Moiré Superstructure in the Pseudo-Square Lattice GdTe3