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Hopping frustration-induced flat band and strange metallicity in a kagome metal

Nature Physics volume 20, pages 610–614 (2024)Cite this article

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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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Fig. 1: Flat band-induced emergent phases and the partial flat band in Ni3In.
Fig. 2: NFL behaviour and strong electron–electron scattering in Ni3In.
Fig. 3: Tuning the NFL–FL crossover in Ni3In.
Fig. 4: The correlated metallic state and flat band-induced magnetic fluctuations in Ni3In.

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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.

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Acknowledgements

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.

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  1. Linda Ye

    Present address: Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Linda Ye, Shiang Fang, Mingu Kang, Yonghun Lee, Caolan John, Paul M. Neves, S. Y. Frank Zhao, Riccardo Comin & Joseph G. Checkelsky

  2. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, USA

    Shiang Fang

  3. Institute for Solid State Physics, TU Wien, Vienna, Austria

    Josef Kaufmann

  4. Institute for Theoretical Solid State Physics, Leibniz IFW Dresden, Dresden, Germany

    Josef Kaufmann & Oleg Janson

  5. Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Jonathan Denlinger, Chris Jozwiak, Aaron Bostwick & Eli Rotenberg

  6. Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Efthimios Kaxiras

  7. Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Efthimios Kaxiras & David C. Bell

  8. Center for Nanoscale Systems, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    David C. Bell

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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.

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Correspondence to Joseph G. Checkelsky.

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Supplementary Sections 1–11 and Figs. S1–23.

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Ye, L., Fang, S., Kang, M. et al. Hopping frustration-induced flat band and strange metallicity in a kagome metal. Nat. Phys. 20, 610–614 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-023-02360-5

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