Atomic-scale observation of structural and electronic orders in the layered compound α-RuCl<sub>3</sub>.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 27941761.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms13774 and PMC identifier 5159869.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
A pseudospin-1/2 Mott phase on a honeycomb lattice is proposed to host the celebrated two-dimensional Kitaev model which has an elusive quantum spin liquid ground state, and fascinating physics relevant to the development of future templates towards topological quantum bits. Here we report a comprehensive, atomically resolved real-space study by scanning transmission electron and scanning tunnelling microscopies on a novel layered material displaying Kitaev physics, α-RuCl<sub>3</sub>. Our local crystallography analysis reveals considerable variations in the geometry of the ligand sublattice in thin films of α-RuCl<sub>3</sub> that opens a way to realization of a spatially inhomogeneous magnetic ground state at the nanometre length scale. Using scanning tunnelling techniques, we observe the electronic energy gap of ≈0.25 eV and intra-unit cell symmetry breaking of charge distribution in individual α-RuCl<sub>3</sub> surface layer. The corresponding charge-ordered pattern has a fine structure associated with two different types of charge disproportionation at Cl-terminated surface.