Scientists show that Pd5AlI2 can mimic the electronic behavior of frustrated lattices, creating both flat and Dirac-like bands from a simple square lattice.
This work reveals a new way to achieve the exotic electronic properties of frustrated lattices in simple, stable materials, opening paths to discover and design novel quantum materials.
Electron hopping on periodic lattice structures leads to unusual electronic behavior. In particular, hopping on two-dimensional frustrated lattices such as kagome, dice, and Lieb creates band structures that include both massless, Dirac-like bands and flat ( dispersionless) bands. Since real materials with dice and Lieb lattices are rare and their experimental realization has so far been limited to optical lattices of ultracold atoms, researchers have proposed another approach: using the arrangement of atomic orbitals to reproduce the same frustrated hopping seen in these lattices. This method could expand the range of materials that show frustrated electron hopping, though it has not yet been demonstrated in practice.
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Image: a) Orbital orientation of PdAl layer in Pd5AlI2 forms a checkerboard lattice. (b & c) ARPES Fermi surface map and band structure (blue) along the
path (inset; red) of the surface BZ. DFT calculated band structure is overlaid on top (dashed grey) with bands linked to the decorated checkerboard model highlighted in cyan and red.
