Local orbital degeneracy lifting as a precursor to an orbitalselective Peierls transition

ORAL

Abstract

Fundamental electronic principles underlying all transition metal compounds are the symmetry and filling of the d-electron orbitals and the influence of this filling on structural configurations and responses. Here we use a sensitive local structural technique, x-ray atomic pair distribution function analysis, to reveal the presence of fluctuating local-structural distortions at high temperature in one such compound, CuIr2S4. We show that this hitherto overlooked fluctuating symmetry-lowering is electronic in origin and will modify the energy-level spectrum and electronic and magnetic properties. The explanation is a local, fluctuating, orbital-degeneracy-lifted state. The natural extension of our result would be that this phenomenon is likely to be widespread amongst diverse classes of partially filled nominally degenerate d-electron systems, with potentially broad implications for our understanding of their properties.

*Work at Brookhaven National Laboratory was supported by US DOE, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences under contract DE-SC0012704. Work in the Materials Science Division of Argonne National Laboratory, was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Science and Engineering Division.

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Presenters

  • Emil Bozin

    • Brookhaven National Laboratory
    • Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science, Brookhaven National Laboratory

Authors

  • Emil Bozin

    • Brookhaven National Laboratory
    • Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science, Brookhaven National Laboratory

  • Weiguo Yin

    • Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science Division, Brookhaven National Laboratory
    • Brookhaven National Laboratory

  • Robert Koch

    • Brookhaven National Laboratory
    • Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science, Brookhaven National Laboratory

  • Milinda Abeykoon

    • Brookhaven National Laboratory
    • Brokhaven National Laboratory
    • Photon Science Division, Brookhaven National Laboratory

  • Yew San Hor

    • Argonne National Laboratory

  • Hong Zheng

    • Argonne National Laboratory
    • Argonne Natl Lab
    • Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory
    • Material Science Division, Argonne National Lab

  • Hechang Lei

    • Brookhaven National Laboratory
    • Department of Physics and Beijing Key Laboratory of Opto-electronic Functional Materials and Micro-nano Devices, Renmin University of China
    • Renmin University of China

  • Cedomir Petrovic

    • Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory
    • Brookhaven National Laboratory
    • Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science, Brookhaven National Laboratory
    • Condensed Matter Physics & Materials Science Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory
    • Brookhaven National Laboratory, NY 11973, USA

  • John Mitchell

    • Argonne National Laboratory
    • Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory
    • Argonne Natl Lab
    • Materials Science Division, Argonne National Lab
    • Material Science Division, Argonne National Lab

  • Simon J L Billinge

    • Brookhaven National Laboratory
    • Columbia University, Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics
    • Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics, Columbia University