Distortions of the crystal lattice can strongly change the electronic and magnetic behaviour of layered materials. Combining scanning tunnelling microscopy and spectroscopy, non-contact atomic force microscopy, photoemission spectroscopy and density functional theory, researchers have studied the van der Waals compound TaCo2Te2.
They found a square-like electronic pattern that does not follow the distorted hexagonal arrangement of surface atoms, and a strongly anisotropic Fermi surface. Calculations show that the lattice reconstruction suppresses a magnetic instability present in the undistorted structure, stabilising a non-magnetic state through enhanced orbital hybridisation. The work links QMAT's Synthetic Quantum Materials group led by Shawulienu Kezilebieke at the University of Jyväskylä with Adolfo Fumega of the Correlated Quantum Materials group at Aalto, and Synchrotron SOLEIL in France.
The preprint has not yet been peer reviewed.
Image: QMAT