Hopping frustration-induced flat band and strange metallicity in a kagome metal
Abstract
The introduction of localized electronic states into a metal can alter its physical properties, for example enabling exotic metal physics including heavy fermion and strange metal behaviour. A common source of localized states in such systems are partially filled 4f and 5f shells because of the inherently compact nature of those orbitals. The interaction of electrons in these orbitals with the conduction sea is well described by the Kondo framework. However, there have also been observations of Kondo-like behaviour in 3d transition metal oxides and in 4d- and 5d-containing van der Waals heterostructures. This calls for a broader consideration of the physical requirements for Kondo systems. Here we show transport and thermodynamic hallmarks of heavy fermion and strange metal behaviour that arise in the kagome metal Ni3In, wherein the source of localized states is destructive interference-induced band flattening of partially filled Ni 3d states. With magnetic field and pressure tuning, we also find evidence that the system is proximate to quantum criticality, extending the analogy to f-electron Kondo lattices. These observations highlight the role of hopping frustration in metallic systems as a potential source for strong correlations. Additionally, this suggests a lattice-driven approach to realizing correlated metals with non-trivial band topology.
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Copyright and License
We appreciate fruitful discussions with T. Senthil, B. J. Yang, L. Zou, Y. Zhang, K. Haule, J.-S. You, J. van den Brink, O. I. Motrunich, S. Bühler-Paschen, Q. Si, C. Varma and M. Kriener. L.Y. acknowledges assistance from M.K. Chan for pulsed field magnetization measurements. D.C.B. acknowledges help from A. Akey for TEM sample preparation. This research is funded in part by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation EPiQS Initiative, through grants GBMF3848 and GBMF9070 to J.G.C. (material synthesis), NSF grant DMR-1554891 (material design), ARO grant no. W911NF-16-1-0034 (technique development) and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under award FA9550-22-1-0432 (advanced material analysis). L.Y., M.K. and E.K. acknowledge support by the STC Center for Integrated Quantum Materials, NSF grant number DMR-1231319. L.Y. acknowledges the Heising-Simons Physics Research Fellow Program and the Tsinghua Education Foundation. S.F. is partially supported by a Rutgers Center for Material Theory Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship. M.K. acknowledges support from the Samsung Scholarship from the Samsung Foundation of Culture. R.C. acknowledges support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. O.J. was supported by the Leibniz Association through the Leibniz Competition. A portion of this work was performed at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, which is supported by National Science Foundation cooperative agreement no. DMR-1644779, the State of Florida and the Department of Energy (DOE). Pulsed magnetic field measurements at Los Alamos National Laboratory were supported by the US Department of Energy BES Science at 100T grant. This research used the resources of the Advanced Light Source, a US DOE Office of Science User Facility under contract no. DE-AC02-05CH11231. The computations in this paper were run on the ITF/IFW computer clusters (Dresden, Germany) and the FASRC Cannon cluster supported by the FAS Division of Science Research Computing Group at Harvard University. We thank U. Nitzsche for technical assistance in maintaining computing resources at IFW Dresden. This work was performed in part at the Aspen Center for Physics, which is supported by National Science Foundation grant PHY-1607611.
Contributions
L.Y. and J.G.C. designed the study. L.Y. synthesized and characterized the single crystalline and polycrystalline materials, and performed and analysed the physical property measurements, with C.J. (hydrostatic pressure measurements), P.M.N. (rotation measurements) and S.Y.F.Z. (low temperature measurements). S.F., J.K., O.J. and E.K. performed the first principles analysis. M.K., Y.L. and R.C. performed the photoemission experiments and analysis with the assistance of J.D., C.J., A.B. and E.R. J.D. guided the process of sample surface preparation. D.C.B. performed the transmission electron microscopy measurements. L.Y. and J.G.C. wrote the manuscript with input from all the other authors.
Data Availability
The datasets for the main text are available in the Supplementary Information. All other data are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. Source data are provided with this paper.
Code Availability
The codes used to support the findings in this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare no competing interests.
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Additional details
- ISSN
- 1745-2481
- URL
- https://rdcu.be/dw1Hc
- Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
- GBMF3848
- Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
- GBMF9070
- National Science Foundation
- DMR-1554891
- United States Army Research Office
- W911NF-16-1-0034
- United States Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- FA9550-22-1-0432
- National Science Foundation
- DMR-1231319
- Heising-Simons Foundation
- Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
- Samsung (United States)
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
- Leibniz Association
- National Science Foundation
- DMR-1644779
- United States Department of Energy
- DE-AC02-05CH11231
- Harvard University
- National Science Foundation
- DMR-1231319
- National Science Foundation
- PHY-1607611
- Caltech groups
- Institute for Quantum Information and Matter