The physical description of all materials is rooted in quantum mechanics, which describes how atoms bond and electrons interact at a fundamental level. Although these quantum effects can in many ...cases be approximated by a classical description at the macroscopic level, in recent years there has been growing interest in material systems where quantum effects remain manifest over a wider range of energy and length scales. Such quantum materials include superconductors, graphene, topological insulators, Weyl semimetals, quantum spin liquids, and spin ices. Many of them derive their properties from reduced dimensionality, in particular from confinement of electrons to two-dimensional sheets. Moreover, they tend to be materials in which electrons cannot be considered as independent particles but interact strongly and give rise to collective excitations known as quasiparticles. In all cases, however, quantum-mechanical effects fundamentally alter properties of the material. This Review surveys the electronic properties of quantum materials through the prism of the electron wavefunction, and examines how its entanglement and topology give rise to a rich variety of quantum states and phases; these are less classically describable than conventional ordered states also driven by quantum mechanics, such as ferromagnetism.
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Abstract
The excitonic insulator is a long conjectured correlated electron phase of narrow-gap semiconductors and semimetals, driven by weakly screened electron–hole interactions. Having been ...proposed more than 50 years ago, conclusive experimental evidence for its existence remains elusive. Ta
2
NiSe
5
is a narrow-gap semiconductor with a small one-electron bandgap
E
G
of <50 meV. Below
T
C
=326 K, a putative excitonic insulator is stabilized. Here we report an optical excitation gap
E
op
∼0.16 eV below
T
C
comparable to the estimated exciton binding energy
E
B
. Specific heat measurements show the entropy associated with the transition being consistent with a primarily electronic origin. To further explore this physics, we map the
T
C
–
E
G
phase diagram tuning
E
G
via chemical and physical pressure. The dome-like behaviour around
E
G
∼0 combined with our transport, thermodynamic and optical results are fully consistent with an excitonic insulator phase in Ta
2
NiSe
5
.
The discovery of high-temperature superconductivity in the copper oxides in 1986 triggered a huge amount of innovative scientific inquiry. In the almost three decades since, much has been learned ...about the novel forms of quantum matter that are exhibited in these strongly correlated electron systems. A qualitative understanding of the nature of the superconducting state itself has been achieved. However, unresolved issues include the astonishing complexity of the phase diagram, the unprecedented prominence of various forms of collective fluctuations, and the simplicity and insensitivity to material details of the 'normal' state at elevated temperatures.
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DOBA, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Recent technical advances in the atomic-scale synthesis of oxide heterostructures have provided a fertile new ground for creating novel states at their interfaces. Different symmetry constraints can ...be used to design structures exhibiting phenomena not found in the bulk constituents. A characteristic feature is the reconstruction of the charge, spin and orbital states at interfaces on the nanometre scale. Examples such as interface superconductivity, magneto-electric coupling, and the quantum Hall effect in oxide heterostructures are representative of the scientific and technological opportunities in this rapidly emerging field.
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A long-standing controversial issue in the quest to understand the superconductivity in cuprates is the nature of the enigmatic pseudogap region of the phase diagram. Especially important is whether ...the pseudogap state is a distinct thermodynamic phase characterized by broken symmetries below the onset temperature T∗ . Here we report torque-magnetometry measurements of anisotropic susceptibility within the ab planes in orthorhombic YBa2 Cu3 Oy with exceptionally high precision. The in-plane anisotropy displays a significant increase with a distinct kink at the pseudogap onset temperature T∗ , showing a remarkable scaling behaviour with respect to T/T∗ in a wide doping range. Our systematic analysis reveals that the rotational symmetry breaking sets in at T∗ in the limit where the effect of orthorhombicity is eliminated. These results provide thermodynamic evidence that the pseudogap onset is associated with a second-order nematic phase transition, which differs from the recently reported charge-density-wave transition that accompanies translational symmetry breaking.
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Nonlinear optical excitation of infrared active lattice vibrations has been shown to melt magnetic or orbital orders and to transform insulators into metals. In cuprates, this technique has been used ...to remove charge stripes and promote superconductivity, acting in a way opposite to static magnetic fields. Here, we show that excitation of large-amplitude apical oxygen distortions in the cuprate superconductor YBa2Cu3O6.5 promotes highly unconventional electronic properties. Below the superconducting transition temperature (Tc = 50 K) inter-bilayer coherence is transiently enhanced at the expense of intra-bilayer coupling. Strikingly, even above Tc a qualitatively similar effect is observed up to room temperature, with transient inter-bilayer coherence emerging from the incoherent ground state and similar transfer of spectral weight from high to low frequency. These observations are compatible with previous reports of an inhomogeneous normal state that retains important properties of a superconductor, in which light may be melting competing orders or dynamically synchronizing the interlayer phase. The transient redistribution of coherence discussed here could lead to new strategies to enhance superconductivity in steady state.
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Terahertz-frequency optical pulses can resonantly drive selected vibrational modes in solids and deform their crystal structures. In complex oxides, this method has been used to melt electronic ...order, drive insulator-to-metal transitions and induce superconductivity. Strikingly, coherent interlayer transport strongly reminiscent of superconductivity can be transiently induced up to room temperature (300 kelvin) in YBa2Cu3O6+x (refs 9, 10). Here we report the crystal structure of this exotic non-equilibrium state, determined by femtosecond X-ray diffraction and ab initio density functional theory calculations. We find that nonlinear lattice excitation in normal-state YBa2Cu3O6+x at above the transition temperature of 52 kelvin causes a simultaneous increase and decrease in the Cu-O2 intra-bilayer and, respectively, inter-bilayer distances, accompanied by anisotropic changes in the in-plane O-Cu-O bond buckling. Density functional theory calculations indicate that these motions cause drastic changes in the electronic structure. Among these, the enhancement in the character of the in-plane electronic structure is likely to favour superconductivity.
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DOBA, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Abstract
α
-RuCl
3
is a major candidate for the realization of the Kitaev quantum spin liquid, but its zigzag antiferromagnetic order at low temperatures indicates deviations from the Kitaev model. ...We have quantified the spin Hamiltonian of
α
-RuCl
3
by a resonant inelastic x-ray scattering study at the Ru
L
3
absorption edge. In the paramagnetic state, the quasi-elastic intensity of magnetic excitations has a broad maximum around the zone center without any local maxima at the zigzag magnetic Bragg wavevectors. This finding implies that the zigzag order is fragile and readily destabilized by competing ferromagnetic correlations. The classical ground state of the experimentally determined Hamiltonian is actually ferromagnetic. The zigzag state is stabilized by quantum fluctuations, leaving ferromagnetism – along with the Kitaev spin liquid – as energetically proximate metastable states. The three closely competing states and their collective excitations hold the key to the theoretical understanding of the unusual properties of
α
-RuCl
3
in magnetic fields.
Cuprates exhibit antiferromagnetic, charge density wave (CDW), and high-temperature superconducting ground states that can be tuned by means of doping and external magnetic fields. However, disorder ...generated by these tuning methods complicates the interpretation of such experiments. Here, we report a high-resolution inelastic x-ray scattering study of the high-temperature superconductor YBa
Cu
O
under uniaxial stress, and we show that a three-dimensional long-range-ordered CDW state can be induced through pressure along the
axis, in the absence of magnetic fields. A pronounced softening of an optical phonon mode is associated with the CDW transition. The amplitude of the CDW is suppressed below the superconducting transition temperature, indicating competition with superconductivity. The results provide insights into the normal-state properties of cuprates and illustrate the potential of uniaxial-pressure control of competing orders in quantum materials.
In high-Tc superconductors the magnetic and electronic properties are determined by the probability that valence electrons jump virtually from site to site in the CuO2 planes, a mechanism opposed by ...on-site Coulomb repulsion and favoured by hopping integrals. The spatial extent of the latter is related to transport properties, including superconductivity, and to the dispersion relation of spin excitations (magnons). Here, for three antiferromagnetic parent compounds (single-layer Bi2 Sr0.9 La1.1 CuO6+δ , double-layer Nd1.2 Ba1.8 Cu3 O6 and infinite-layer CaCuO2 ) differing by the number of apical atoms, we compare the magnetic spectra measured by resonant inelastic X-ray scattering over a significant portion of the reciprocal space and with unprecedented accuracy. We observe that the absence of apical oxygens increases the in-plane hopping range and, in CaCuO2 , it leads to a genuine three-dimensional (3D) exchange-bond network. These results establish a corresponding relation between the exchange interactions and the crystal structure, and provide fresh insight into the materials dependence of the superconducting transition temperature.
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