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Non-Fermi liquid behaviour in a correlated flat-band pyrochlore lattice

Nature Physics volume 20, pages 603–609 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Electronic correlation effects are manifested in quantum materials when either the on-site Coulomb repulsion is large or the electron kinetic energy is small. The former is the dominant effect in cuprate superconductors and heavy-fermion systems whereas it is the latter in twisted bilayer graphene and geometrically frustrated metals. However, the simultaneous cooperation of both effects in the same quantum material remains rare. The design aim is to produce correlated topological flat bands pinned at the Fermi level. Here, we observe a flat band at the Fermi level in a 3d pyrochlore metal CuV2S4. Our angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy data reveal that destructive quantum interference associated with the V pyrochlore sublattice and further renormalization to the Fermi level by electron interactions induce this flat band. Consequently, we discover transport signatures that evidence a deviation from Fermi liquid behaviour as well as an enhanced Sommerfeld coefficient. Our work illustrates the combined cooperation of local Coulomb interactions and geometric frustration in a pyrochlore lattice system to induce correlated topology by constructing and pinning correlated flat bands near the Fermi level.

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Fig. 1: Crystal structure and DFT calculations of CuV2S4.
Fig. 2: Electronic structure and 3D flat band of CuV2S4 by ARPES.
Fig. 3: Electron correlation effects and the flat band at EF.
Fig. 4: Transport and thermodynamic measurements showing the non-Fermi liquid behaviour.

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Data availability

All data needed to evaluate the conclusions are present in the paper and supplementary materials. Source data are provided with this paper. Additional data are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Code availability

The code for the band structure calculations used in this study are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This research used the resources of the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, which is supported by the US Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences (BES; Contract No. DE-AC02-76SF00515). The ARPES work at Rice University was supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s EPiQS Initiative (Grant No. GBMF9470 to M.Y.) and the Robert A. Welch Foundation (Grant No. C-2175 to M.Y.). Y.Z. is partially supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR; Grant No. FA9550-21-1-0343 to M.Y.). The theoretical work at Rice is primarily supported by the US DOE, BES (Award No. DE-SC0018197 to Q.S. for model building and microscopic calculations and support for L.C.), by the AFOSR (Grant No. FA9550-21-1-0356 to Q.S. for materials search and support for C.S.), by the Robert A. Welch Foundation (Grant No. C-1411 for model conceptualization to Q.S.) and by the Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship (Grant No. ONR-VB N00014-23-1-2870 for conceptualization to Q.S.). Computational modeling was supported by the Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-22-1-2753 (Y.H. and B.I.Y.). The single-crystal synthesis work at Rice was supported by US DOE BES under Grant No. DE-SC0012311 (P.D.) and by the Robert A. Welch Foundation (Grant No. C-1839 to P.D.). The transport and thermodynamic measurements at UW were supported by the AFOSR under Grant No. FA2386-21-1-4060 and the David Lucile Packard Foundation (J.H.C.). M.H. and D.L. acknowledge the support of the US DOE, BES, Division of Material Sciences and Engineering (Contract No. DE-AC02-76SF00515).

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  1. These authors contributed equally: Lei Chen, Yuefei Huang, Chandan Setty.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

    Jianwei Huang, Lei Chen, Chandan Setty, Bin Gao, Yichen Zhang, Pengcheng Dai, Qimiao Si & Ming Yi

  2. Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

    Yuefei Huang & Boris I. Yakobson

  3. Department of Physics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Yue Shi, Zhaoyu Liu & Jiun-Haw Chu

  4. National Synchrotron Light Source II, Brookhaven National Lab, Upton, NY, USA

    Turgut Yilmaz & Elio Vescovo

  5. Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA, USA

    Makoto Hashimoto & Donghui Lu

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Contributions

M.Y. oversaw the project. C.S. and Q.S. first proposed the compound associated with the pyrochlore lattice. Single crystals were synthesized by B.G. under the guidance of P.D. J.H., Y.Z. and M.Y. carried out the ARPES measurements with the help of D.L., M.H., T.Y. and E.V. The ARPES data were analysed by J.H. The U(1) auxiliary-spin calculations were carried out by L.C., C.S. and Q.S. The DFT calculations and tight-binding model fitting were carried out by Y.H. under the guidance of B.Y. The transport and heat capacity measurements were carried out by Y.S., Z.L. and J.C. J.H. and M.Y. wrote the paper with input from all co-authors.

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Correspondence to Qimiao Si or Ming Yi.

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Supplementary Notes 1–8 and Figs. 1–14.

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Source date for DFT calculations.

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Source data for DFT calculations and ARPES EDCs.

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Source data for auxiliary-spin calculations and ARPES EDCs.

Source Data for Fig. 4

Source data for resistivity and specific heat.

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Huang, J., Chen, L., Huang, Y. et al. Non-Fermi liquid behaviour in a correlated flat-band pyrochlore lattice. Nat. Phys. 20, 603–609 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-023-02362-3

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