Atomically precise engineering of spin-orbit polarons in a kagome magnetic Weyl semimetal.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 38485746.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-024-46729-3 and PMC identifier 10940584.
- 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
Atomically precise defect engineering is essential to manipulate the properties of emerging topological quantum materials for practical quantum applications. However, this remains challenging due to the obstacles in modifying the typically complex crystal lattice with atomic precision. Here, we report the atomically precise engineering of the vacancy-localized spin-orbit polarons in a kagome magnetic Weyl semimetal Co<sub>3</sub>Sn<sub>2</sub>S<sub>2</sub>, using scanning tunneling microscope. We achieve the step-by-step repair of the selected vacancies, leading to the formation of artificial sulfur vacancies with elaborate geometry. We find that that the bound states localized around these vacancies undergo a symmetry dependent energy shift towards Fermi level with increasing vacancy size. As the vacancy size increases, the localized magnetic moments of spin-orbit polarons become tunable and eventually become itinerantly negative due to spin-orbit coupling in the kagome flat band. These findings provide a platform for engineering atomic quantum states in topological quantum materials at the atomic scale.