Researchers at Rice University and collaborating institutions have discovered direct evidence of active flat electronic bands in a kagome superconductor. This breakthrough could pave the way for new methods to design quantum materials -- including superconductors, topological insulators and spin-based electronics -- that could power future electronics and computing technologies. The study, published in Nature Communications Aug. 14, centers on the chromium-based kagome metal CsCr₃Sb₅, which becomes superconducting under pressure.
Kagome metals, characterized by their two-dimensional lattices of corner-sharing triangles, have recently been predicted to host compact molecular orbitals, or standing-wave patterns of electrons that could potentially facilitate unconventional superconductivity and novel magnetic orders that can be made active by electron correlation effects. In most materials, these flat bands remain too far from active energy levels to have any significant impact; however, in CsCr₃Sb₅, they are actively involved and directly influence the material's properties.
Pengcheng Dai, Ming Yi and Qimiao Si of Rice's Department of Physics and Astronomy and Smalley-Curl Institute, along with Di-Jing Huang of Taiwan's National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center, led the study.
"Our results confirm a surprising theoretical prediction and establish a pathway for engineering exotic superconductivity through chemical and structural control," said Dai, the Sam and Helen Worden Professor of Physics and Astronomy.
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