Flat bands and dispersive Dirac bands are known to coexist in the electronic bands in a two-dimensional kagome lattice. Including the relativistic spin-orbit coupling, such systems often exhibit nontrivial band topology, allowing for gapless edge modes between flat bands at several locations in the band structure, and dispersive bands or at the Dirac band crossing. Here, we theoretically demonstrate that a multiorbital system on a kagome lattice is a versatile platform to explore the interplay between nontrivial band topology and electronic interaction. Specifically, here we report that the multiorbital kagome model with the atomic spin-orbit coupling naturally supports topological bands characterized by nonzero Chern numbers $\cal C$, including a flat band with $|{\cal C}| =1$. When such a flat band is $1/3$ filled, the non-local repulsive interactions induce a fractional Chern insulating state. We also discuss the possible realization of our findings in real kagome materials.
By connecting Hund's physics with flat band physics, we establish an exact result for studying ferromagnetism in a multiorbital system. We consider a two-layer model consisting of a $p_x$, $p_y$-orbital honeycomb lattice layer and an $f$-orbital triangular lattice layer with sites aligned with the centers of the honeycomb plaquettes. The system features a flat band that admits a percolation representation for an appropriate chemical potential difference between the two layers. In this representation, the ground state space is spanned by maximum-spin clusters of localized single-particle states…
We study two models of correlated bond- and site-disorder on the kagome lattice considering both translationally invariant and completely disordered systems. The models are shown to exhibit a perfectly flat ground state band in the presence of disorder for which we provide exact analytic solutions. Whereas in one model the flat band remains gapped and touches the dispersive band, the other model has a finite gap, demonstrating that the band touching is not protected by topology alone. Our model also displays fully saturated ferromagnetic groundstates in the presence of repulsive interactions, …
We present a thorough tight-binding analysis of the band structure of a wide variety of lattices belonging to the class of honeycomb and Kagome systems including several mixed forms combining both lattices. The band structure of these systems are made of a combination of dispersive and flat bands. The dispersive bands possess Dirac cones (linear dispersion) at the six corners (K points) of the Brillouin zone although in peculiar cases Dirac cones at the center of the zone $(Γ$ point) appear. The flat bands can be of different nature. Most of them are tangent to the dispersive bands at the cent…
We study the transverse field Ising model on a kagome and a triangular lattice using high-order series expansions about the high-field limit. For the triangular lattice our results confirm a second-order quantum phase transition in the 3d XY universality class. Our findings for the kagome lattice indicate a notable instance of a disorder by disorder scenario in two dimensions. The latter follows from a combined analysis of the elementary gap in the high- and low-field limit which is shown to stay finite for all fields h. Furthermore, the lowest one-particle dispersion for the kagome lattice is…
The kagome lattice based on 3d transition metals is a versatile platform for novel topological phases hosting symmetry-protected electronic excitations and exotic magnetic ground states. However, the paradigmatic states of the idealized two-dimensional (2D) kagome lattice - Dirac fermions and topological flat bands - have not been simultaneously observed, partly owing to the complex stacking structure of the kagome compounds studied to date. Here, we take the approach of examining FeSn, an antiferromagnetic single-layer kagome metal with spatially-decoupled kagome planes. Using polarization- a…
Tunable flat band on the surface of a rhombohedral kagome ferromagnet
University of Texas at Austin（德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校）；Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research（马克斯·普朗克固体研究所）；University of Augsburg（奥格斯堡大学）；Moldova State University（摩尔多瓦国立大学）；University of Stuttgart（斯图加特大学）；National Institute for Materials Science（物质材料研究机构）
The Hubbard model on the kagomé lattice has highly degenerate ground states (the flat lowest band) in the corresponding single-electron problem and exhibits the so-called flat-band ferromagnetism in the many-electron ground states as was found by Mielke. Here we study the model obtained by adding extra hopping terms to the above model. The lowest single-electron band becomes dispersive, and there is no band gap between the lowest band and the other band. We prove that, at half-filling of the lowest band, the ground states of this perturbed model remain saturated ferromagnetic if the lowest ban…
Observation of Resonance of Kagome Flat Band Doublet
Tsung-Dao Lee Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University（上海交通大学李政道研究所）；School of Physical Science and Technology, ShanghaiTech University（上海科技大学理学院）；School of Physics and Astronomy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University（上海交通大学物理与天文学院）；Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility, Shanghai Advanced Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院上海高等研究院上海同步辐射光源设施）；Department of Physics, Boston College（波士顿学院物理系）；Hefei National Laboratory（合肥国家实验室）；New Cornerstone Science Laboratory, Tsung-Dao Lee Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University（上海交通大学李政道研究所新基石科学实验室）；Zhangjiang Institute for Advanced Study, Shanghai Jiao Tong University（上海交通大学张江高等研究院）
In two-dimensional (2D) metallic kagome lattice materials, destructive interference of electronic hopping pathways around the kagome bracket can produce nearly localized electrons, and thus electronic bands that are flat in momentum space. When ferromagnetic order breaks the degeneracy of the electronic bands and splits them into the spin-up majority and spin-down minority electronic bands, quasiparticle excitations between the spin-up and spin-down flat bands should form a narrow localized spin-excitation Stoner continuum coexisting with well-defined spin waves in the long wavelengths. Here w…
We study the quantum phase diagram of spinful fermions on kagome lattice with half-filled lowest flat bands. To understand the competition between magnetism, flat band frustration, and repulsive interactions, we adopt an extended $t$-$J$ model, where the hopping energy $t$, antiferromagnetic Heisenberg interaction $J$, and short-range neighboring Hubbard interaction $V$ are considered. In the weak $J$ regime, we identify a fully spin-polarized phase, which can further support the spontaneous Chern insulating phase driven by the short-range repulsive interaction. This phase still emerges with i…
Kagome lattices host flat bands due to their frustrated lattice geometry, which leads to destructive quantum interference of electron wave functions. Here, we report imaging of the kagome flat band localization in real-space using scanning tunneling microscopy. We identify both the Fe3Sn kagome lattice layer and the Sn2 honeycomb layer with atomic resolution in kagome antiferromagnet FeSn. On the Fe3Sn lattice, at the flat band energy determined by the angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy, tunneling spectroscopy detects an unusual state localized uniquely at the Fe kagome lattice network.…
Among condensed matter systems, Mott insulators exhibit diverse properties that emerge from electronic correlations. In itinerant metals, correlations are usually weak, but can also be enhanced via geometrical confinement of electrons, that manifest as `flat' dispersionless electronic bands. In the fast developing field of topological materials, which includes Dirac and Weyl semimetals, flat bands are one of the important components that can result in unusual magnetic and transport behaviour. To date, characterisation of flat bands and their magnetism is scarce, hindering the design of novel m…
Unconventional features of the magnetization curve at zero temperature such as plateaus or jumps are a hallmark of frustrated spin systems. Very little is known about their behavior at non-zero temperatures. Here we investigate the temperature dependence of the magnetization curve of the kagome lattice antiferromagnet in particular at 1/3 of the saturation magnetization for large lattice sizes of up to N=48 spins. We discuss the phenomenon of asymmetric melting and trace it back to a combined effect of unbalanced magnetization steps on either side of the investigated plateau as well as on the …
Emergent dynamical Kondo coherence and competing magnetic order in a correlated kagome flat-band metal CsCr6Sb6
ShanghaiTech University（上海科技大学）；Fudan University（复旦大学）；Tsung-Dao Lee Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University（上海交大李政道研究所）；Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics and Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院物理研究所（北京凝聚态物理国家研究中心））；University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学）；Analytical Instrumentation Center, School of Physical Science and Technology, ShanghaiTech University（上海科技大学分析测试中心）；Shanghai Research Center for Quantum Sciences（上海量子科学研究与创新中心）；ShanghaiTech Laboratory for Topological Physics, ShanghaiTech University（上海科技大学拓扑物理实验室）
Unraveling Intertwined Orders in the Strongly Correlated Kagome Metal CsCr3Sb5
Tsinghua University（清华大学）；Weizmann Institute of Science（魏茨曼科学研究所）；Zhejiang University（浙江大学）；Zhejiang University of Technology（浙江工业大学）；University of Science and Technology of China（中国科学技术大学）
We present numerical evidence for the crystallization of magnons below the saturation field at non-zero temperatures for the highly frustrated spin-half kagome Heisenberg antiferromagnet. This phenomenon can be traced back to the existence of independent localized magnons or equivalently flat-band multi-magnon states. We present a loop-gas description of these localized magnons and a phase diagram of this transition, thus providing information for which magnetic fields and temperatures magnon crystallization can be observed experimentally. The emergence of a finite-temperature continuous trans…
Electronic flat band systems are a fertile platform to host correlation-induced quantum phenomena such as unconventional superconductivity, magnetism and topological orders. While flat band has been established in geometrically frustrated structures, such as the kagome lattice, flat band-induced correlation effects especially in those multi-orbital bulk systems are rarely seen. Here we report negative magnetoresistance and signature of ferromagnetic fluctuations in a prototypical kagome metal CoSn, which features a flat band in proximity to the Fermi level. We find that the magnetoresistance i…
Layered kagome-lattice 3d transition metals are emerging as an exciting platform to explore the frustrated lattice geometry and quantum topology. However, the typical kagome electronic bands, characterized by sets of the Dirac-like band capped by a phase-destructive flat band, have not been clearly observed, and their orbital physics are even less well investigated. Here, we present close-to-textbook kagome bands with orbital differentiation physics in CoSn, which can be well described by a minimal tight-binding model with single-orbital hopping in Co kagome lattice. The capping flat bands wit…
Recent neutron scattering experiments on the spin-1/2 kagome lattice antiferromagnet ZnCu3(OH)6Cl2 (Herbertsmithite) provide the first evidence of fractionalized excitations in a quantum spin liquid state in two spatial dimensions. In contrast to existing theoretical models of spin liquids, the measured dynamic structure factor reveals an excitation continuum which is remarkably flat as a function of frequency and has almost no momentum dependence along several high-symmetry directions. Here we show that many experimentally observed features can be explained by the presence of topological viso…
Two ubiquitous features of frustrated spin systems stand out: massive degeneracy of their ground states and flat, or dispersionless, excitation branches. In real materials, the former is frequently lifted by secondary interactions or quantum fluctuations, in favor of an ordered or spin-liquid state, but the latter often survive. We demonstrate that flat modes may precipitate remarkably strong quantum effects even in the systems that are otherwise written off as almost entirely classical. The resultant spectral features should be reminiscent of the quasiparticle breakdown in quantum systems, on…
Kagome magnet TbMn$_6$Sn$_6$ is a new type of topological material that is known to support exotic quantum magnetic states. Experimental work has identified that TbMn$_6$Sn$_6$ hosts Dirac electronic states that could lead to topological and Chern quantum phases, but the optical response of the Dirac fermions of TbMn$_6$Sn$_6$ and its properties remain to be explored. Here, we perform optical spectroscopy measurement combined with first-principles calculations on single-crystal sample of TbMn$_6$Sn$_6$ to investigate the associated exotic phenomena. TbMn$_6$Sn$_6$ exhibits frequency-independen…
The authors of a recent paper evidently take the view that the whole of progress made toward a theoretical understanding of the physics of quantum spin liquids (QSL) is associated with models of the kind proposed and applied in their present work. As motivation for this work, they observe that in contrast to existing theoretical models of both gapped and gapless spin liquids, which give rise to sharp dispersive features in the dynamic structure factor, the measured dynamic structure factor reveals an excitation continuum that is remarkably flat as a function of frequency. They go on to assert …
Correlation-Induced Topological Reconstruction in a Periodically Driven Kagome Mott Insulator
National Institute of Science Education and Research（印度科学与教育国立研究所）；Homi Bhabha National Institute（霍米·巴巴国立研究所）；S. N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences（S.N. 玻色基础科学国立中心）；Technische Universität Braunschweig（布伦瑞克工业大学）
Electronic properties of kagome lattice have drawn great attention recently. In associate with flat-band induced by destructive interference and Dirac cone-type dispersion, abundant exotic phenomena have been theoretically discussed. The material realization of electronic kagome lattice is a crucial step towards comprehending kagome physics and achieving novel quantum phases. Here, combining angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, transport measurements and first-principle calculations, we expose a planar flat-band in paramagnetic YCr6Ge6 as a typical signature of electronic kagome lattice.…
Magnetic fluctuations near the Van Hove singularity in the kagome-lattice Hubbard model at finite doping
Key Laboratory for Microstructural Material Physics of Hebei Province, School of Science, Yanshan University（燕山大学理学院河北省微观结构材料物理重点实验室）；School of Physics and Astronomy, and Key Laboratory of Multiscale Spin Physics (Ministry of Education), Beijing Normal University（北京师范大学物理学系与教育部多尺度自旋物理重点实验室）
Crystal geometry can greatly influence the emergent properties of quantum materials. As an example, the kagome lattice is an ideal platform to study the rich interplay between topology, magnetism, and electronic correlation. In this work, combining high-resolution angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and ab-initio calculation, we systematically investigate the electronic structure of XMn6Sn6 (X = Dy, Tb, Gd, Y) family compounds. We observe the Dirac fermion and the flat band arising from the magnetic kagome lattice of Mn atoms. Interestingly, the flat band locates in the same energy regio…
Coexisting Kagome and Heavy Fermion Flat Bands in YbCr$_6$Ge$_6$
Sungkyunkwan University（成均馆大学）；Seoul National University（首尔大学）；Yale University（耶鲁大学）；National Synchrotron Light Source II, Brookhaven National Laboratory（美国国家同步辐射光源二号，布鲁海文国家实验室）；Pohang Accelerator Laboratory, Pohang University of Science and Technology（浦项加速器实验室，浦项科技大学）；Sookmyung Women’s University（淑明女子大学）；Kyung Hee University（庆熙大学）
The excitonic insulator (EI) state is a strongly correlated many-body ground state, arising from an instability in the band structure towards exciton formation. We show that the flat valence and conduction bands of a semiconducting diatomic Kagome lattice, as exemplified in a superatomic graphene lattice, can possibly conspire to enable an interesting triplet EI state, based on density functional theory (DFT) calculations combined with many-body GW and Bethe-Salpeter Equation(BSE). Our results indicate that massive carriers in flat bands with highly localized electron and hole wavefunctions si…
