Abstract
A nematic phase breaks the point-group symmetry of the crystal lattice and is known to emerge in correlated materials. Here we report the observation of an intra-unit-cell nematic order and associated Fermi surface deformation in the kagome metal ScV6Sn6. Using scanning tunnelling microscopy and scanning tunnelling spectroscopy, we reveal a stripe-like nematic order breaking the crystal rotational symmetry within the kagome lattice itself. Moreover, we identify a set of Van Hove singularities adhering to the kagome-layer electrons, which appear along one direction of the Brillouin zone and are annihilated along other high-symmetry directions, revealing rotational symmetry breaking. Via detailed spectroscopic maps, we further observe an elliptical deformation of the Fermi surface, which provides direct evidence for an electronically mediated nematic order. Our work not only bridges the gap between electronic nematicity and kagome physics but also sheds light on the potential mechanism for realizing symmetry-broken phases in correlated electron systems.
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All data needed to evaluate the conclusions in the paper are present in the Article and its Supplementary Information. Additional data are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
The M.Z.H. group acknowledges primary support from the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, National Quantum Information Science Research Centers, Quantum Science Center (at Oak Ridge National Laboratory) and Princeton University; scanning tunneling microscopy instrumentation support from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (GBMF9461) and support with theory work; and support from the US Department of Energy under the Basic Energy Sciences program (grant no. DOE/BES DE-FG-02-05ER46200) for the theory and sample characterization work, including photoemission spectroscopy. Work at Nanyang Technological University was supported by the National Research Foundation, Singapore, under its Fellowship Award (NRF-NRFF13-2021-0010), the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) under its Manufacturing, Trade and Connectivity Individual Research Grant (grant no. M23M6c0100), the Singapore Ministry of Education AcRF Tier 2 grant (MOE-T2EP50222-0014) and the Nanyang Assistant Professorship grant (NTU-SUG). The computational work at Nanyang Technological University for this article was partially performed on resources of the National Supercomputing Centre, Singapore (https://www.nscc.sg). T.N., M.M.D. and S.Z. were supported by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (ERC-StG-Neupert-757867-PARATOP). S.Z. was also supported by the UZH Postdoc Grant. R.T. was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation) through Project-ID 258499086-SFB 1170 and the Wurzburg-Dresden Cluster of Excellence on Complexity and Topology in Quantum Matter–ct.qmat Project-ID 390858490-EXC 2147. Y.G. acknowledges the Double First-Class Initiative Fund of ShanghaiTech University. W.X. acknowledges the research fund from the State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics and Department of Physics, Fudan University (grant no. KF2022_13). Y.P. is grateful for financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 12374143).
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Y.-X.J. and M.S.H. conducted the STM experiments in consultation with M.Z.H. W.X. and Y.G. synthesized the samples. Q.Q., X.Z. and Y.P. performed the X-ray measurements. M.M.D., J.I., S.Z., G.C., R.T. and T.N. carried out the theoretical analysis in consultation with Y.-X.J. and M.Z.H. S.S., H.C. and G.C. conducted the first-principles calculations. J.-X.Y., Z.-J.C., X.P.Y., M.L., Q.Z. and T.A.C. contributed to the calibration of the measurements. Y.-X.J. and M.Z.H. performed the data analysis and figure development, and wrote the paper with contributions from all authors. M.Z.H. supervised the project. All authors discussed the results, interpretation and conclusion.
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Jiang, YX., Shao, S., Xia, W. et al. Van Hove annihilation and nematic instability on a kagome lattice. Nat. Mater. 23, 1214–1221 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-024-01914-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-024-01914-z
