Quantifying magnetic field driven lattice distortions in kagome metals at the femto-scale using scanning tunneling microscopy

Abstract

A wide array of unusual phenomena has recently been uncovered in kagome solids. The charge density wave (CDW) state in the kagome superconductor AV3Sb5 in particular intrigued the community -- the CDW phase appears to break the time-reversal symmetry despite the absence of spin magnetism, which has been tied to exotic orbital loop currents possibly intertwined with magnetic field tunable crystal distortions. To test this connection, precise determination of the lattice response to applied magnetic field is crucial, but can be challenging at the atomic-scale. We establish a new scanning tunneling microscopy based method to study the evolution of the AV3Sb5 atomic structure as a function of magnetic field. The method substantially reduces the errors of typical STM measurements, which are at the order of 1% when measuring an in-plane lattice constant change. We find that the out-of-plane lattice constant of AV3Sb5 remains unchanged (within 10^-6) by the application of both in-plane and out-of-plane magnetic fields. We also reveal that the in-plane lattice response to magnetic field is at most at the order of 0.05%. Our experiments provide further constraints on time-reversal symmetry breaking in kagome metals, and establish a new tool for higher-resolution extraction of the field-lattice coupling at the nanoscale applicable to other quantum materials.

References in corpus (52)

• CsV${}_3$Sb${}_5$: a ${\mathbb{Z}}_2$ topological kagome metal with a superconducting ground state
• Roton pair density wave and unconventional strong-coupling superconductivity in a topological kagome metal
• Cascade of correlated electron states in a kagome superconductor CsV3Sb5
• Time-reversal symmetry-breaking charge order in a kagome superconductor
• Charge density waves and electronic properties of superconducting kagome metals
• Superconductivity in the ${\mathbb{Z}}_2$ kagome metal KV${}_3$Sb${}_5$
• Double superconducting dome and triple enhancement of Tc in the kagome superconductor CsV3Sb5 under high pressure
• Concurrence of anomalous Hall effect and charge density wave in a superconducting topological kagome metal
• Three-dimensional charge density wave and robust zero-bias conductance peak inside the superconducting vortex core of a kagome superconductor CsV${}_3$Sb${}_5$
• Superconductivity and normal-state properties of kagome metal RbV3Sb5 single crystals
• Unusual competition of superconductivity and charge-density-wave state in a compressed topological kagome metal
• Observation of Unconventional Charge Density Wave without Acoustic Phonon Anomaly in Kagome Superconductors AV3Sb5 (A=Rb,Cs)
• Chiral flux phase in the Kagome superconductor AV${}_3$Sb${}_5$
• Analysis of Charge Order in the Kagome Metal $A$V${}_3$Sb${}_5$ ($A=$K,Rb,Cs)
• Electronic instabilities of kagome metals: saddle points and Landau theory
• Nature of unconventional pairing in the kagome superconductors AV${}_3$Sb${}_5$
• Electronic Nature of Charge Density Wave and Electron-Phonon Coupling in Kagome Superconductor KV${}_3$Sb${}_5$
• Rotation symmetry breaking in the normal state of a kagome superconductor KV3Sb5
• Rich Nature of Van Hove Singularities in Kagome Superconductor CsV${}_3$Sb${}_5$
• Complex charge density waves at Van Hove singularity on hexagonal lattices: Haldane-model phase diagram and potential realization in kagome metals ${\text{AV}}_3{\text{Sb}}_5$
• Multiband superconductivity with sign-preserving order parameter in kagome superconductor CsV3Sb5
• Twofold symmetry of $c$-axis resistivity in topological kagome superconductor CsV${}_3$Sb${}_5$ with in-plane rotating magnetic field
• Three-state nematicity and magneto-optical Kerr effect in the charge density waves in kagome superconductors
• A quantum phase transition from triangular to stripe charge order in NbSe${}_2$
• Theory of the charge-density wave in $A$V${}_3$Sb${}_5$ kagome metals
• Origin of the Charge Density Wave in the Kagome Metal CsV${}_3$Sb${}_5$ as Revealed by Optical Spectroscopy
• Multiple Energy Scales and Anisotropic Energy Gap in the Charge-Density-Wave Phase of Kagome Superconductor CsV3Sb5
• Absence of local moments in the kagome metal KV3Sb5 as determined by muon spin spectroscopy
• Coherent phonon spectroscopy and interlayer modulation of charge density wave order in the kagome metal CsV${}_3$Sb${}_5$
• Charge order breaks time-reversal symmetry in CsV${}_3$Sb${}_5$
• Chern Fermi pocket, topological pair density wave, and charge-4e and charge-6e superconductivity in kagome superconductors
• Loop currents in $A$V${}_3$Sb${}_5$ kagome metals: multipolar and toroidal magnetic orders
• Revealing the competition between charge-density wave and superconductivity in CsV${}_3$Sb${}_5$ through uniaxial strain
• Spatial symmetry constraint of charge-ordered kagome superconductor CsV${}_3$Sb${}_5$
• Conjoined Charge Density Waves in the Kagome Superconductor CsV3Sb5
• Nanoscale decoupling of electronic nematicity and structural anisotropy in FeSe thin films
• No observation of chiral flux current in the topological kagome metal CsV${}_3$Sb${}_5$
• Revealing the immediate formation of two-fold rotation symmetry in charge-density-wave state of Kagome superconductor CsV${}_3$Sb${}_5$ by optical polarization rotation measurement
• Topological magnon bands in a room temperature Kagome magnet
• Unidirectional coherent quasiparticles in the high-temperature rotational symmetry broken phase of AV3Sb5 kagome superconductors
• Theory of nematic charge orders in kagome metals
• Unconventional Optical Rotation in the Charge Ordered State of Kagome Metal CsV3Sb5
• Microscopic nature of the charge-density wave in kagome superconductor RbV${}_3$Sb${}_5$
• Small Fermi pockets intertwined with charge stripes and pair density wave order in a kagome superconductor
• Visualizing nematic transition and nanoscale suppression of superconductivity in Fe(Te,Se)
• Real-space post-processing correction of thermal drift and piezoelectric actuator nonlinearities in scanning tunneling microscope images
• Two distinct superconducting states controlled by orientation of local wrinkles in LiFeAs
• Manipulation of Dirac band curvature and momentum-dependent g-factor in a kagome magnet YMn6Sn6
• Anomalous Hall effect and two-dimensional Fermi surfaces in the charge-density-wave state of kagome metal RbV${}_3$Sb${}_5$
• Origin of $\pi$-shifted three-dimensional charge density waves in kagome metal AV${}_3$Sb${}_5$
• Phase diagram of CeSb${}_2$ from magnetostriction and magnetization measurements: Evidence for ferrimagnetic and antiferromagnetic states
• Nanoscale visualization of the thermally-driven evolution of antiferromagnetic domains in FeTe thin films

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Kagome metals
• Loop-current order through the kagome looking glass
• Nanoscale strain manipulation of smectic susceptibility in kagome superconductors
• Limitations of detecting structural changes and time-reversal symmetry breaking in scanning tunneling microscopy experiments