EDITORS' SUGGESTION
Antimony telluride (SbTe) has garnered significant attention within the condensed matter community, particularly as one of the earliest experimentally recognized topological insulators. However, despite substantial investigation, our understanding of the bulk electronic band structure of SbTe remains incomplete. Here, the authors employ a comprehensive experimental and theoretical approach integrating magneto-optical, optical, magnetotransport and techniques to examine SbTe. Their findings reveal that this material possesses a direct energy band gap at the center of the Brillouin zone, while also exhibiting additional low-energy band extrema in mirror planes.
I. Mohelsky et al.
Phys. Rev. B 109, 165205 (2024)
EDITORS' SUGGESTION
The so-called Remeika phase of the 3–4–13 class of materials is a candidate system for investigating topological electronic phenomena. The authors explore here an antiferromagnetic ordered structure comprising one-dimensional Nd chains connected via the triangular lattice in NdRhSn, which is superimposed on the chiral structure like that in several Remeika phase compounds. The results suggest that simultaneously broken spatial and time-reversal symmetries in this material open an avenue to investigate magnetic interactions mediated by the topological electrons protected by the noncentrosymmetric chiral structure.
Ami Shimoda et al.
Phys. Rev. B 109, 134425 (2024)
EDITORS' SUGGESTION
Altermagnetism is increasingly gaining attention and RuO thin films have been arguably the most popular altermagnetic candidate. However, most publications miss a disturbing fact: direct experiments indicate the absence of any sizable ordered magnetism in stoichiometric bulk samples. Here, the authors confirm, through first-principles calculations, that the bulk samples are indeed far from ordered magnetism, but intrinsic hole doping strongly enhances the tendency to magnetism, suggesting an interesting possibility that the measured thin films may be magnetically different from stoichiometric bulk RuO.
Andriy Smolyanyuk, Igor I. Mazin, Laura Garcia-Gassull, and Roser Valentí
Phys. Rev. B 109, 134424 (2024)
EDITORS' SUGGESTION
To be useful for quantum computation, qubits in an array must remain localized – that is, not “dressed” too much by nearby degrees of freedom. This localization has been previously achieved using disorder. But the authors observe here that a more effective route to localization is with a quasiperiodic patterning of the qubit array Hamiltonian. This paper develops two different perturbation approaches to calculate diagnostics for many-body localization in quasiperiodic superconducting transmon arrays. Perturbing in anharmonicity versus perturbing in hopping strength give complementary information.
Evangelos Varvelis and David P. DiVincenzo
Phys. Rev. B 109, 144201 (2024)
EDITORS' SUGGESTION
Charge density waves (CDW) accompanied by superconductivity (SC) is an enduring topic in the field of condensed matter physics for it involves exotic physical properties and quantum states. This paper presents a competitive relationship between the anisotropic SC and CDW down to the two-dimensional limit in ZrTe, a quasi-one-dimensional material. It reveals an unusual nonmonotonic evolution versus thickness and suggests a complicated superconducting mechanism in this compound.
Xinyu Chen et al.
Phys. Rev. B 109, 144513 (2024)
EDITORS' SUGGESTION
By examining the complex interactions between light and magnetism, this work uncovers the dominant role played by light’s spin angular momentum in magnetic all-optical switching (AOS) using Co/Pt ferromagnetic thin films. The authors use femtosecond vortex beams to demonstrate that the topological charge and orbital angular momentum’s handedness are inconsequential. As a result, this research enhances our comprehension and underscores the pivotal correlation between the angular momentum of light and magnetization dynamics.
Muhammad Waleed Khalid et al.
Phys. Rev. B 109, L140403 (2024)
EDITORS' SUGGESTION
Strong disorder in many-body quantum systems leads to many-body localization (MBL), manifested as long-time memory of the initial state. Spatial regions of anomalously weak disorder, arising due to fluctuations in the disordered potential, may act as ergodic inclusions that seed quantum avalanches and destabilize the MBL. To investigate this mechanism in a controlled setting, the authors plant ergodic inclusions by engineering regions of a weak disorder and compare the system’s time evolution with predictions of the avalanche theory.
Tomasz Szołdra, Piotr Sierant, Maciej Lewenstein, and Jakub Zakrzewski
Phys. Rev. B 109, 134202 (2024)
EDITORS' SUGGESTION
The tetragonal 122 family of compounds exhibits a wide variety of intriguing phenomena, many of which are intimately related to their magnetic properties. Here, the magnetic phase diagrams of DyRhSi and HoRhSi are explored in detail by extremely sensitive thermal expansion and magnetostriction measurements. Some similarities can be attributed to comparable crystalline electric fields in these compounds, while an additional transition is revealed for HoRhSi just below the Néel temperature () and analyzed via the magnetic Grüneisen ratio.
H. Dawczak-Dębicki et al.
Phys. Rev. B 109, 134408 (2024)
EDITORS' SUGGESTION
High-order harmonics and the reverse of the squaring-up process is uncovered in the evolution of magnetic orders of the centrosymmetric layered triangular-lattice magnet HoPdAlGe. Ho spins order antiferromagnetically as a transverse spin density wave below 10.5 K. Upon further cooling through 5.5 K, the high-order harmonics develop, suggesting a “squaring up” process. It is surprising that the squaring up process does not continue down to 0 K but reverses the trend below ~3 K or by applying a small magnetic field.
Fei Gao et al.
Phys. Rev. B 109, 134407 (2024)
EDITORS' SUGGESTION
The superfluid stiffness () is one of the key characteristics of a superconductor, determining the magnetic penetration length and, in two dimensions, the critical temperature. For Galilean invariant systems, it is known that the zero-temperature stiffness takes a universal value = (=0), while for non-Galilean invariant systems the superfluid stiffness may be suppressed. Here, the authors demonstrate when and how vertex corrections may cancel suppression of the superfluid stiffness at strong coupling.
Zachary M. Raines, Shang-Shun Zhang, and Andrey V. Chubukov
Phys. Rev. B 109, 144505 (2024)
EDITORS' SUGGESTION
Although many other transition metal halides have been magnetically characterized, CrI, a proposed “sliding ferroelectric”, has been overlooked. Via neutron powder diffraction, the authors report here that a screw-like helimagnetic order develops below 17 K, corresponding to a ~90º spin rotation per Cr ion along the “ribbon chains”. Calculations suggest that, as in the structurally and magnetically similar copper dihalides, the helimagnetism arises due to a sufficiently antiferromagnetic intrachain next-nearest-neighbor coupling.
John A. Schneeloch et al.
Phys. Rev. B 109, 144403 (2024)
EDITORS' SUGGESTION
-RuCl is a candidate for realizing the Kitaev quantum spin liquid state. Despite extensive research efforts, its crystal structure at temperatures relevant to studying Kitaev physics has been controversial. Here, the authors examine a single crystal with minimal twinning and stacking faults, allowing them to unambiguously determine the symmetry change across the structural phase transition. They find that the three-fold rotational symmetry of the honeycomb plane is restored in the low-temperature phase with symmetry group , although this symmetry is explicitly broken in the room-temperature structure.
Subin Kim et al.
Phys. Rev. B 109, L140101 (2024)
EDITORS' SUGGESTION
Rare-earth tritellurides are van der Waals antiferromagnets that are a promising platform not only for spintronic devices but also for the study of the correlation between the charge density wave (CDW) and magnetic states in low-dimensional materials. Here, the authors perform longitudinal and Hall resistivity measurements in exfoliated Te (=La, Ce, Tb) thin film devices. The carrier mobility and concentration change at the magnetic transition temperature. The result suggests the strong coupling between the CDW and antiferromagnetic phases.
Tomo Higashihara et al.
Phys. Rev. B 109, 134404 (2024)
EDITORS' SUGGESTION
This paper reports unconventional behavior of the superfluid stiffness in disordered superconductors, such as to amorphous InO. The authors unveil a remarkable power-law suppression at , with an exponent . Through a combination of experiments and theory, they reveal the influence of disorder on this phenomenon, shedding light on the existence of low-energy collective excitations. These findings redefine our understanding of dissipation in inhomogeneous superconductors, with implications for their use in quantum circuits.
Anton V. Khvalyuk et al.
Phys. Rev. B 109, 144501 (2024)