Fermion–boson many-body interplay in a frustrated kagome paramagnet

J. X. Yin, Nana Shumiya, Sougata Mardanya, Qi Wang, Songtian S. Zhang, Hung Ju Tien, Daniel Multer, Yuxiao Jiang, Guangming Cheng, Nan Yao, Shangfei Wu, Desheng Wu, Liangzi Deng, Zhipeng Ye, Rui He, Guoqing Chang, Zhonghao Liu, Kun Jiang, Ziqiang Wang, Titus NeupertAmit Agarwal, Tay Rong Chang, Ching Wu Chu, Hechang Lei, M. Zahid Hasan

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

29 Scopus citations

Abstract

Kagome-nets, appearing in electronic, photonic and cold-atom systems, host frustrated fermionic and bosonic excitations. However, it is rare to find a system to study their fermion–boson many-body interplay. Here we use state-of-the-art scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy to discover unusual electronic coupling to flat-band phonons in a layered kagome paramagnet, CoSn. We image the kagome structure with unprecedented atomic resolution and observe the striking bosonic mode interacting with dispersive kagome electrons near the Fermi surface. At this mode energy, the fermionic quasi-particle dispersion exhibits a pronounced renormalization, signaling a giant coupling to bosons. Through the self-energy analysis, first-principles calculation, and a lattice vibration model, we present evidence that this mode arises from the geometrically frustrated phonon flat-band, which is the lattice bosonic analog of the kagome electron flat-band. Our findings provide the first example of kagome bosonic mode (flat-band phonon) in electronic excitations and its strong interaction with fermionic degrees of freedom in kagome-net materials.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number4003
JournalNature communications
Volume11
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 1 2020

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • General
  • Physics and Astronomy(all)
  • Chemistry(all)
  • Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology(all)

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