Unconventional Hysteretic Transition in a Charge Density Wave

B Q Lv; Alfred Zong; D Wu; A V Rozhkov; Boris V Fine; Su-Di Chen; Makoto Hashimoto; Dong-Hui Lu; M Li; Y-B Huang; Jacob P C Ruff; Donald A Walko; Z H Chen; Inhui Hwang; Yifan Su; Xiaozhe Shen; Xirui Wang; Fei Han; Hoi Chun Po; Yao Wang; Pablo Jarillo-Herrero; Xijie Wang; Hua Zhou; Cheng-Jun Sun; Haidan Wen; Zhi-Xun Shen; N L Wang; Nuh Gedik

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.128.036401

Unconventional Hysteretic Transition in a Charge Density Wave

Phys Rev Lett. 2022 Jan 21;128(3):036401. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.128.036401.

Authors

B Q Lv¹, Alfred Zong^{1

2}, D Wu^{3

4}, A V Rozhkov⁵, Boris V Fine^{6

7}, Su-Di Chen^{8

9}, Makoto Hashimoto¹⁰, Dong-Hui Lu¹⁰, M Li¹¹, Y-B Huang¹¹, Jacob P C Ruff¹², Donald A Walko¹³, Z H Chen¹¹, Inhui Hwang¹³, Yifan Su¹, Xiaozhe Shen¹⁴, Xirui Wang¹, Fei Han¹⁵, Hoi Chun Po^{1

16}, Yao Wang¹⁷, Pablo Jarillo-Herrero¹, Xijie Wang¹⁴, Hua Zhou¹³, Cheng-Jun Sun¹³, Haidan Wen^{13

18}, Zhi-Xun Shen^{8

9}, N L Wang^{3

19}, Nuh Gedik¹

Affiliations

¹ Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Physics, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
² University of California at Berkeley, Department of Chemistry, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
³ International Center for Quantum Materials, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
⁴ Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory, Dongguan, Guangdong 523808, China.
⁵ Institute for Theoretical and Applied Electrodynamics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 125412, Russia.
⁶ Laboratory for the Physics of Complex Quantum Systems, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Institutsky pereulok 9, Dolgoprudny 141701, Russia.
⁷ Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Leipzig, Brüderstrasse 16, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
⁸ Department of Applied Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
⁹ Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA.
¹⁰ Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA.
¹¹ Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility, Shanghai Advanced Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201204, China.
¹² CHESS, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA.
¹³ Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, Illinois 60439, USA.
¹⁴ SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, California, USA.
¹⁵ Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
¹⁶ Department of Physics, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Hong Kong, China.
¹⁷ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina 29631, USA.
¹⁸ Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, Illinois 60439, USA.
¹⁹ Beijing Academy of Quantum Information Sciences, Beijing 100913, China.

PMID: 35119886
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.128.036401

Abstract

Hysteresis underlies a large number of phase transitions in solids, giving rise to exotic metastable states that are otherwise inaccessible. Here, we report an unconventional hysteretic transition in a quasi-2D material, EuTe_{4}. By combining transport, photoemission, diffraction, and x-ray absorption measurements, we observe that the hysteresis loop has a temperature width of more than 400 K, setting a record among crystalline solids. The transition has an origin distinct from known mechanisms, lying entirely within the incommensurate charge density wave (CDW) phase of EuTe_{4} with no change in the CDW modulation periodicity. We interpret the hysteresis as an unusual switching of the relative CDW phases in different layers, a phenomenon unique to quasi-2D compounds that is not present in either purely 2D or strongly coupled 3D systems. Our findings challenge the established theories on metastable states in density wave systems, pushing the boundary of understanding hysteretic transitions in a broken-symmetry state.